Create a new personal Thanksgiving tradition this year!

By the time you get out of bed  Thursday morning for Thanksgiving, I’ll be at the Empire State Plaza, once again standing in line to be a deliveryperson at the annual Equinox Thanksgiving Day Community Dinner.  Once again, I’m ready to deliver Thanksgiving turkey dinners to those in need.  While others in the blog community spend their time whining and kvetching about why they hate Thanksgiving, I can say that, yes at one point I felt this way… but I broke out of that malaise and found a way to make the holiday more personal and beneficial.

In the past, I too have suffered through the worst of what Thanksgiving has to offer.  Battling relatives who couldn’t put their differences aside for a single day.  Food I didn’t want to eat.  Stuck watching a football game between two teams I couldn’t give two hangs about.  Or just  staying home, only to hear the next day, “Oh Chuck, you should have come over to my family’s place, we always have room for one more person,” even though I knew very well it was a hollow, meaningless invitation – that the person knew I couldn’t go back in time a day and actually take them UP on the offer.

So I decided it was time to change my view of the holiday.  Thanksgiving isn’t just a day of eating turkey and watching football.  It’s an opportunity, as the holiday’s name implies, to give thanks.  To acknowledge what we’ve accomplished, and to share our bountiful life with others.

For me, that’s meant getting up at 5:00 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, clearing out my car, and driving to the Empire State Plaza.  I stand in line with hundreds of other delivery drivers, and eventually we reach the distribution center – we pick up our delivery directions and allotment of meals, and then off we go to deliver our meals, to share goodness with others.

I’ve delivered to families in Schenectady and in Saratoga Springs, in Wynantskill and Pine Hills and Fort Plain.  I’ve delivered to senior citizens’ homes and to tenements and to every sort of dwelling environment that one can imagine.

So instead of whining and moaning and griping and complaining about the holiday… how about driving down to the Empire State Plaza on Thursday morning, and help bring someone else in our community a happy Thanksgiving.

I’ll be there Thursday morning.  I hope to see you down here, too.  Come on over and say hi.  And bring lots of baskets and buckets, you’re going to deliver lots of dinners this Thursday.  And every delivery completed will make your heart feel so good.