During grade school I did it every year around this time.
I made a turkey by cutting out a tracing of my hand, colored and
pasted the little guy into something worthy of my Mom’s fridge and
on the back wrote out what I was thankful for in order of
importance.
Apparently old habits do die hard, because I still feel the need
to transcribe my thanks on the ultimate of proverbial turkeys
– except this paper turkey isn’t as nice to look at and probably
won’t make it onto Mom’s fridge.
During grade school I did it every year around this time.
I made a turkey by cutting out a tracing of my hand, colored and pasted the little guy into something worthy of my Mom’s fridge and on the back wrote out what I was thankful for in order of importance.
Apparently old habits do die hard, because I still feel the need to transcribe my thanks on the ultimate of proverbial turkeys – except this paper turkey isn’t as nice to look at and probably won’t make it onto Mom’s fridge.
I don’t remember exactly what I was thankful for when I was 10, but it probably went something like this:
1. My Mom and Dad for all their love.
2. My teachers for giving me the gift of education.
These first two were to placate the people who held the most power over my head, and which could be highly profitable if cleverly referred to when it came time to ask for that new jean jacket I’d been wanting for months.
3. The new “Live in Concert: New Kids on the Block” video my Mom bought me last week.
4. God and Jesus for all their love (in a Catholic School if you didn’t include these guys on a list such as this, you’d go straight to hell for sure).
5. My younger sister for giving me the gift of patience (the fact that I usually threw that gift out the window and knocked her around a little anyway was irrelevant).
These last two were also to placate the individuals who occupied the first and second spots on my list. At that time, my 4-year-old sister would have topped my list of things I wish had never been born, and God and Jesus were far-off, intangible entities that weren’t assigning homework on a daily basis and telling me to clean my room because it looked like a pigsty.
So basically, the turkeys my Mom has saved somewhere in a filing cabinet in the spare room are filled with half-truths and pathetic attempts at kissing up to my teachers, milking my parents for more stuff and trying to keep out of hell.
Now that I’m a little wiser and a lot less scared of going to hell (if the priests are right, then I secured a first-class ticket a long time ago and nothing I do is going to reverse it), my list of what I’m thankful for has changed and dare I say, matured:
1. My family for all their love and support. Mom, Dad and my younger sister, Emily, top this list not for a new jean jacket, but because without them I’d be completely lost. Em moved from fifth place to first because over the years she has become one of the sweetest, most inspiring individuals I know (not to mention that she still looks up to me in so many ways that I have become somewhat of a goddess molded to perfection in her eyes, which is good for my ego).
2. My job, for giving me the multiple gifts of knowledge, patience, a little money and more patience. It’s not a glamorous job. It definitely isn’t the highest paying job. And most of the time it’s not terribly exciting, but it’s important nonetheless. At least the four or so people that read my articles are a little more informed than before they picked up the paper that day.
3. The harsh realities of life, which have dropped me to my knees on numerous occasions and made me wonder if I could have sidestepped some of it if I had just been a little more sincere about the God and Jesus thing when I was 10. But in retrospect, those trying experiences led me to a better understanding of what constitutes true joy and happiness, and not to take it for granted.
4. My health. I know I might be a little young to be really thankful for this one, but over the past several months I’ve watched my Grandfather slowly succumbing to cancer. When you watch someone change into a completely different being because of a disease, it makes you thankful for the little things that don’t matter until they’re put in jeopardy. And now that I’m paying for health insurance myself, I’m damn thankful I don’t get sick very often because I just couldn’t afford it.
5. My new Tiffany’s necklace and bracelet I bought on eBay for cheap. It might be materialistic and shallow, but at least I put it at the end of the list instead of in the middle like my New Kids video when I was 10. I bet it really chapped God’s hide that He got beat out by the New Kids, but at the time that’s what He got for making me put up with a 4-year-old pain in the, I mean, sister.
