Thursday, November 24, 2011

Thanksgiving: America Coming Home


Let me begin this post with my sincerest wishes that you are surrounded this Thanksgiving with friends and family.

As we gather together to share in our holiday feast, I hope you will remember our brave military servicemen and women who are far from hearth and home serving our nation in harm’s way.  I hope you offer a prayer to those whose tables will have an empty chair that would otherwise have been filled by someone they’ve lost during the year.

Year after year nothing really changes on Thanksgiving does it?  We give thanks that we live in the freest nation on earth.  The baby that was brought into the world since the last Thanksgiving is proudly shown off and the fabric of the American family is stitched together again as the bountiful meal is shared.  America has come home.

Pictured here is the November 24, 1945, Saturday Evening Post cover featuring Norman Rockwell’s "Home for Thanksgiving” where a GI still in his uniform happily helps his mom peel the potatoes for the feast they will enjoy. 

The tradition in my home includes watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  The parade travels down Central Park West and ends at 34th Street.  That sets the stage for watching, for the umpteenth time, the classic movie Miracle on 34th Street.

The movie stars little Natalie Wood as Susan Walker, who in her young life, has doubts about childhood’s most enduring miracle. She learns through Kris Kringle, played by Edmund Gwenn, that faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to.

Then comes the football games where everybody finds a spot around the TV and undoes their pants to ease that stuffed-to-the-gills feeling.
 
Here’s wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving.


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