I couldn’t answer this question yesterday when it was posted as I was feeling a bit sorry for myself. Last Thanksgiving we hosted my niece and her husband and my husband’s daughter and a friend. Years and years before that I made dinner for my family – my Grandparents, friends, cousins, and my boyfriend. I loved doing it and trying to make it very special. Years changed, circumstances changed -my life changed. In 1992 I was in Somalia on Thanksgiving…I tried to make a “pumpkin” pie from gourds! The crust was made from flour that had weevils in it. I worked so hard…and when one of my cohorts took a bit …he spit is out (he was a Pediatrician…maybe he learned tht from his patients 🙂 I don’t think we had any of our traditional food…and Thanksgiving was something completely unknown to the Somalis. Coming back to the US…I cherished holidays with my boyfriend’s family. It was big and joyous. My family was scattered about..brother, nieces, nephews…My parents and grandparents were long gone. My BF family was my family. After 11 years he decided that I was not for him…and I felt lost and afraid…mostly because I loved his family so much. BUT!! they never abandoned me…I am going to see his Mom, sistters and brother in a weeks for 7 days! His Mom is now 93 and still going strong. My husband and I celebrated alone yesterday…but with homemade Turkey, homemade stuffing and mashed potatoes and gravy…and a delicious apple pie that my husband made in the morning. At the end of the day…I realized how Blessed I was…we had a warm home, plenty of food and each other. My husband thanked God that I was here (had a serious heart attack earlier this year) and I was thankful to be alive. Our traditions may change but the love will always remain. Thank you all for opening my eyes…I am grateful for all of you each and every day…and now realize how rich I truly am.
Nanette, I love that your ex boyfriend’s family stayed connected with you. When I divorced i missed contact with my in-laws but thru my daughter’s medical concerns this year we reconnected which was very bittersweet to me.
What I love most about your sharing, Nannette,
is that, I hear you saying that it’s not the size of the family that makes you grateful.
What I’m hearing you say, is that you are grateful for what you have,
your husband, your life, your home and bounty,
the grateful.org family, and all the love in your heart.
Thank you so much, Nannette, for your sharing.
After spending Thanksgiving, with my husband
and my Mom, who was in quite a mood yesterday,
I’ve been rather out of sorts myself.
But I do have so much to be grateful for, Nannette,
and after reading your wise and insightful sharing,
I feel the joy and gratefulness come back into my heart.
So thank you for helping me to open my eyes and my heart.
Sending you much thanks, joy, and many blessings!
♥️♥️♥️Mary
What a lovely meal you shared yesterday. My husband and I did a full spread for the two of us and have lots of leftovers… Thanksgiving leftovers are my favorite!
My great-grandparents were cooks in a Maine logging camp right on the U.S./Canada border. They had this pie they made called brown-sugar pie. Papa made it every holiday. Now I do, and today I got to share the recipe with my brothers and sons today. My brothers will pass it on to their kids. Grateful for my greats, my Papa, my brothers and my sons. Grateful to have a family.
My Mother’s tradition was to make Christmas cookies when I was younger but when my children were young we had a tradition of painting ceramic Christmas ornaments and sometimes giving them as gifts to family. It was our quality time together and a lot of fun.. As many have mentioned traditions have changed over the years and new families are formed with marriages etc. At my sister-in-laws Christmas they do “Christmas crackers” after Dessert which is a European fun tradition I had never heard of but a cute idea! Happy Thanksgiving Grateful community!
There is no tradition coming to mind which would relate to something during my upbringing or family traditions cultivated, but what really is cherished by me are the prostrations in front of the Buddha which one might call a kind of “!tradition” when you look at it from the outside, as something precious is repeated again and again and again. It is cherished because of the indwelling humble devotion felt, confessed and expressed. An intimate moment of Universal Love, cultivated in heart, mind and deed.
Like Barb, many of the traditions I cherish are in the past…they are uplifting memories. Many hold realizations. Like the Thanksgiving my daughter drove to Mississippi from Louisiana to spend Thanksgiving Day with her boy friend’s family and was to return late Saturday to have Thanksgiving with our family on Sunday. We often changed the day of celebration to accommodate a member of our family who could not be present on the actual date of Thanksgiving. She left on Wednesday and I expected her back home on Saturday but her little Chevette came tooling down the driveway Friday afternoon. When she entered the house, I could tell she was upset. She said, “Mama, they didn’t start cooking the turkey until noon! They used stove top stuffing! They didn’t stuff the turkey! The gravy was out of a jar! The pies weren’t homemade! There were no candied yams!” That’s when I realized how important our Thanksgiving tradition was to her. I had never thought of it as a tradition but then I remembered how my Mom prepared the meal just as I do. And, my guess is that Mom prepared it just as her mother had. I didn’t know because my maternal grandmother died when I was three years old. I guess what I am saying is that we don’t always know when we are creating a tradition nor how we pass the torch on when we are gone. May we all create life-giving traditions–traditions that we can cherish and those that come after us will cherish.
This: “we don’t always know when we are creating a tradition nor how we pass the torch on when we are gone.” I mentioned the leafspeditions. I continue those on my own when I go for walks during the work day to refresh my brain or on a weekend with my husband. I arrange the leaves to create arrangements on the ground that surrounds the tree outside my home office window. Sometimes I take a picture and send it to my daughters in our shared chat. After one such image this fall my older daughter said, “We’re taking the kids on a leafspedition this weekend.” She has two stepchildren now in their tweens/teens. It’s passing on at least one generation, maybe two, who knows?
I don’t really have traditions in my life. I guess I’m not very traditional. But, even though my childhood was a bit unconventional and my family was kinda dysfunctional, Thanksgiving was both stressful and great at the same time. We would always have lots of people over, tons of good food, and generally have a good time. Very holiday festive.
I cherish some traditions in memory that I don’t practice any more: Family holiday dinners when my parents were alive and my mom made her great pies, fall “leafspedition” walks with my daughters when they were little to collect the most interesting leaves we could find, my mom’s creative places to hide chocolate Easter eggs, always having the red net bags of gold-covered chocolate coins in Christmas stockings (something my mom did for her kids that I echoed for mine).
Now one I cherish is a fairly new one: Two years ago for our 15th wedding anniversary I suggested we go on 15 dates for 15 years. The next year we went on 16 dates. This year it was 17. They aren’t on consecutive days, they’re not all outings that involve spending money. The important thing is that they’re formally recognized as a date. As we head toward our wedding anniversary we compile a list of possibilities and agree on which ones sound the most interesting to both of us. We spread them out over the course of roughly 2-3 weeks and I take time off to make it easy to do ones that involve more time or travel, like a day trip to the Washington coast. I have a small blank booklet I got from somewhere in which I record what we did for each date.
We also refer to birthdays as a “birthdayweekmonth”. Any time around my birthday if we do something or I get something for myself we consider it part of the birthdayweekmonth celebration. 24 hours simply isn’t enough time.
Your idea regarding dates to match your anniversary are right up my alley, Barb. Thank you. So intentional, and in my world, that is what makes things happen.
I cherish memories of my whole family,
including both my sister’s children,
at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
My Dad and youngest sister have passed on,
And my middle sister would not attend,
but I would love to try to get everyone together for next year.
I would love to recreate the foods, beverages and treats from those days.
Maybe my nieces and nephews, with their families, would be willing to come.
Or do it the week before Thanksgiving.
In whatever form we may do it, I would like to pick that tradition back up
remembering sweet cherished times from the past,
and replanting these traditions
for my family, including a new generation..
I am so grateful for all of you who participate, contribute, read,
and those who create this beautiful daily gathering at grateful.org.
Many blessings and beautiful moments to all of you and to your families. ♥️
Happy Thanksgiving to All here & behind the scenes. Thank you for making this site so
Special. I am forever grateful.
Blessings to All.
Peace & Love.
❤️🙏🏻✨🕊️🍁🍂🕊️✨🙏🏻❤️
Our rituals have changed throughout the years.
The traditions I like are:
Making traditional foods
Discovering new ones
Putting candles (battery operated) in the windows
Getting out the Advent wreath
Writing cards, be it emails, message, or hand written
Wearing a color or garment I don’t usually wear
Listening to music attributed to that season
Watching the parades
Like many have mentioned, getting together with family and spending quality time with them. My sisters are old enough to cook so it’s fun watching them help me cook a thanksgiving meal. There’s always lots of laughter and love 💗
daily tradition of coming onto this grateful website
cooking various seasonal meals
seasonally decorating my home
I cherished making Yule Logs with my daughter
carving pumpkins and dying Easter eggs
St. Patrick’s Day tradition of Irish food, when kids were younger putting green dye in their milk, and adding it to the toilet and saying ‘Look!! a leprechaun peed in our toilet!”
Happy Thanksgiving everyone:)
I think I will try the green dye in the toilet (due to those mischievous small people) 3/17/25 and see my lovely wife Cheryl’s reaction to such shenanigans Michele!
As I have mentioned previously, I am the 8th of 10 children and my husband is the youngest of 11. We were married young and opted out of having children. Every holiday, we were « expected » to be the travellers to wherever our families were gathering.. That expectation was beginning to feel like a burden. We also decided it was important for us to begin to create our own family traditions. In the 70’s, a couple with no children might not have been considered a « family ». However, we knew we were a family. So we decided that Thanksgiving would be our holiday as a family. We would begin do create our own rituals for that holiday. And what a joy it was, and is to this day. May all our blessings continue to unfold.
I love decorating the Christmas tree. It’s like unpacking memories one by one. Almost each ornament was a gift, or handmade by family or bought because it just made me smile. From the day it is put up to the day I take it down I sit in the quiet morning with all those memories and the people I shared them with.
Another tradition that I used to take for granted is the blessing at Thanksgiving. After learning how to be more grateful everyday, today feels like a celebration of all the blessings. I have all of you to thank for this new, deeper feeling of gratefulness. Today’s blessing will be shared with my full heart and not just well meant words of thanks.
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I couldn’t answer this question yesterday when it was posted as I was feeling a bit sorry for myself. Last Thanksgiving we hosted my niece and her husband and my husband’s daughter and a friend. Years and years before that I made dinner for my family – my Grandparents, friends, cousins, and my boyfriend. I loved doing it and trying to make it very special. Years changed, circumstances changed -my life changed. In 1992 I was in Somalia on Thanksgiving…I tried to make a “pumpkin” pie from gourds! The crust was made from flour that had weevils in it. I worked so hard…and when one of my cohorts took a bit …he spit is out (he was a Pediatrician…maybe he learned tht from his patients 🙂 I don’t think we had any of our traditional food…and Thanksgiving was something completely unknown to the Somalis. Coming back to the US…I cherished holidays with my boyfriend’s family. It was big and joyous. My family was scattered about..brother, nieces, nephews…My parents and grandparents were long gone. My BF family was my family. After 11 years he decided that I was not for him…and I felt lost and afraid…mostly because I loved his family so much. BUT!! they never abandoned me…I am going to see his Mom, sistters and brother in a weeks for 7 days! His Mom is now 93 and still going strong. My husband and I celebrated alone yesterday…but with homemade Turkey, homemade stuffing and mashed potatoes and gravy…and a delicious apple pie that my husband made in the morning. At the end of the day…I realized how Blessed I was…we had a warm home, plenty of food and each other. My husband thanked God that I was here (had a serious heart attack earlier this year) and I was thankful to be alive. Our traditions may change but the love will always remain. Thank you all for opening my eyes…I am grateful for all of you each and every day…and now realize how rich I truly am.
Nanette, I love that your ex boyfriend’s family stayed connected with you. When I divorced i missed contact with my in-laws but thru my daughter’s medical concerns this year we reconnected which was very bittersweet to me.
What I love most about your sharing, Nannette,
is that, I hear you saying that it’s not the size of the family that makes you grateful.
What I’m hearing you say, is that you are grateful for what you have,
your husband, your life, your home and bounty,
the grateful.org family, and all the love in your heart.
Thank you so much, Nannette, for your sharing.
After spending Thanksgiving, with my husband
and my Mom, who was in quite a mood yesterday,
I’ve been rather out of sorts myself.
But I do have so much to be grateful for, Nannette,
and after reading your wise and insightful sharing,
I feel the joy and gratefulness come back into my heart.
So thank you for helping me to open my eyes and my heart.
Sending you much thanks, joy, and many blessings!
♥️♥️♥️Mary
What a lovely meal you shared yesterday. My husband and I did a full spread for the two of us and have lots of leftovers… Thanksgiving leftovers are my favorite!
Your full circle story is beautiful. Thank you Nanette
My great-grandparents were cooks in a Maine logging camp right on the U.S./Canada border. They had this pie they made called brown-sugar pie. Papa made it every holiday. Now I do, and today I got to share the recipe with my brothers and sons today. My brothers will pass it on to their kids. Grateful for my greats, my Papa, my brothers and my sons. Grateful to have a family.
My Mother’s tradition was to make Christmas cookies when I was younger but when my children were young we had a tradition of painting ceramic Christmas ornaments and sometimes giving them as gifts to family. It was our quality time together and a lot of fun.. As many have mentioned traditions have changed over the years and new families are formed with marriages etc. At my sister-in-laws Christmas they do “Christmas crackers” after Dessert which is a European fun tradition I had never heard of but a cute idea! Happy Thanksgiving Grateful community!
There is no tradition coming to mind which would relate to something during my upbringing or family traditions cultivated, but what really is cherished by me are the prostrations in front of the Buddha which one might call a kind of “!tradition” when you look at it from the outside, as something precious is repeated again and again and again. It is cherished because of the indwelling humble devotion felt, confessed and expressed. An intimate moment of Universal Love, cultivated in heart, mind and deed.
This is beautiful, Ose– Thank you!!
Like Barb, many of the traditions I cherish are in the past…they are uplifting memories. Many hold realizations. Like the Thanksgiving my daughter drove to Mississippi from Louisiana to spend Thanksgiving Day with her boy friend’s family and was to return late Saturday to have Thanksgiving with our family on Sunday. We often changed the day of celebration to accommodate a member of our family who could not be present on the actual date of Thanksgiving. She left on Wednesday and I expected her back home on Saturday but her little Chevette came tooling down the driveway Friday afternoon. When she entered the house, I could tell she was upset. She said, “Mama, they didn’t start cooking the turkey until noon! They used stove top stuffing! They didn’t stuff the turkey! The gravy was out of a jar! The pies weren’t homemade! There were no candied yams!” That’s when I realized how important our Thanksgiving tradition was to her. I had never thought of it as a tradition but then I remembered how my Mom prepared the meal just as I do. And, my guess is that Mom prepared it just as her mother had. I didn’t know because my maternal grandmother died when I was three years old. I guess what I am saying is that we don’t always know when we are creating a tradition nor how we pass the torch on when we are gone. May we all create life-giving traditions–traditions that we can cherish and those that come after us will cherish.
This: “we don’t always know when we are creating a tradition nor how we pass the torch on when we are gone.” I mentioned the leafspeditions. I continue those on my own when I go for walks during the work day to refresh my brain or on a weekend with my husband. I arrange the leaves to create arrangements on the ground that surrounds the tree outside my home office window. Sometimes I take a picture and send it to my daughters in our shared chat. After one such image this fall my older daughter said, “We’re taking the kids on a leafspedition this weekend.” She has two stepchildren now in their tweens/teens. It’s passing on at least one generation, maybe two, who knows?
Thanks for sharing
I don’t really have traditions in my life. I guess I’m not very traditional. But, even though my childhood was a bit unconventional and my family was kinda dysfunctional, Thanksgiving was both stressful and great at the same time. We would always have lots of people over, tons of good food, and generally have a good time. Very holiday festive.
I cherish some traditions in memory that I don’t practice any more: Family holiday dinners when my parents were alive and my mom made her great pies, fall “leafspedition” walks with my daughters when they were little to collect the most interesting leaves we could find, my mom’s creative places to hide chocolate Easter eggs, always having the red net bags of gold-covered chocolate coins in Christmas stockings (something my mom did for her kids that I echoed for mine).
Now one I cherish is a fairly new one: Two years ago for our 15th wedding anniversary I suggested we go on 15 dates for 15 years. The next year we went on 16 dates. This year it was 17. They aren’t on consecutive days, they’re not all outings that involve spending money. The important thing is that they’re formally recognized as a date. As we head toward our wedding anniversary we compile a list of possibilities and agree on which ones sound the most interesting to both of us. We spread them out over the course of roughly 2-3 weeks and I take time off to make it easy to do ones that involve more time or travel, like a day trip to the Washington coast. I have a small blank booklet I got from somewhere in which I record what we did for each date.
We also refer to birthdays as a “birthdayweekmonth”. Any time around my birthday if we do something or I get something for myself we consider it part of the birthdayweekmonth celebration. 24 hours simply isn’t enough time.
Your idea regarding dates to match your anniversary are right up my alley, Barb. Thank you. So intentional, and in my world, that is what makes things happen.
I cherish memories of my whole family,
including both my sister’s children,
at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
My Dad and youngest sister have passed on,
And my middle sister would not attend,
but I would love to try to get everyone together for next year.
I would love to recreate the foods, beverages and treats from those days.
Maybe my nieces and nephews, with their families, would be willing to come.
Or do it the week before Thanksgiving.
In whatever form we may do it, I would like to pick that tradition back up
remembering sweet cherished times from the past,
and replanting these traditions
for my family, including a new generation..
I am so grateful for all of you who participate, contribute, read,
and those who create this beautiful daily gathering at grateful.org.
Many blessings and beautiful moments to all of you and to your families. ♥️
Happy Thanksgiving to All here & behind the scenes. Thank you for making this site so
Special. I am forever grateful.
Blessings to All.
Peace & Love.
❤️🙏🏻✨🕊️🍁🍂🕊️✨🙏🏻❤️
Our rituals have changed throughout the years.
The traditions I like are:
Making traditional foods
Discovering new ones
Putting candles (battery operated) in the windows
Getting out the Advent wreath
Writing cards, be it emails, message, or hand written
Wearing a color or garment I don’t usually wear
Listening to music attributed to that season
Watching the parades
I love this Yram.
You’ve included so many traditions ,
yet kept it simple.
Such a lovely sharing. ♥️
Thank you!
Like many have mentioned, getting together with family and spending quality time with them. My sisters are old enough to cook so it’s fun watching them help me cook a thanksgiving meal. There’s always lots of laughter and love 💗
This sounds wonderful, Jenifer!
I watch the NFL every Thanksgiving. There are some good games for today; Lions vs Bears, Cowboys vs Giants, and Packers vs Dolphins.
daily tradition of coming onto this grateful website
cooking various seasonal meals
seasonally decorating my home
I cherished making Yule Logs with my daughter
carving pumpkins and dying Easter eggs
St. Patrick’s Day tradition of Irish food, when kids were younger putting green dye in their milk, and adding it to the toilet and saying ‘Look!! a leprechaun peed in our toilet!”
Happy Thanksgiving everyone:)
I think I will try the green dye in the toilet (due to those mischievous small people) 3/17/25 and see my lovely wife Cheryl’s reaction to such shenanigans Michele!
yessss, do it!!
Michele, you are such a delight! Sure and begorrah!
Oh yes, the Easter eggs!
And omg, the leprechaun!😂🤣
As I have mentioned previously, I am the 8th of 10 children and my husband is the youngest of 11. We were married young and opted out of having children. Every holiday, we were « expected » to be the travellers to wherever our families were gathering.. That expectation was beginning to feel like a burden. We also decided it was important for us to begin to create our own family traditions. In the 70’s, a couple with no children might not have been considered a « family ». However, we knew we were a family. So we decided that Thanksgiving would be our holiday as a family. We would begin do create our own rituals for that holiday. And what a joy it was, and is to this day. May all our blessings continue to unfold.
I love decorating the Christmas tree. It’s like unpacking memories one by one. Almost each ornament was a gift, or handmade by family or bought because it just made me smile. From the day it is put up to the day I take it down I sit in the quiet morning with all those memories and the people I shared them with.
Another tradition that I used to take for granted is the blessing at Thanksgiving. After learning how to be more grateful everyday, today feels like a celebration of all the blessings. I have all of you to thank for this new, deeper feeling of gratefulness. Today’s blessing will be shared with my full heart and not just well meant words of thanks.
Happy Thanksgiving or happy Thursday to all.