As we prepare for Thanksgiving this year, the only true certainty is that this year’s celebration will be dramatically different than any of our previous ones. Due to all the Covid-19 restrictions, our nation’s normal busiest travel days of the year will see all-time record lows for holiday travel and the usual large family gatherings will, likewise, look drastically different for most homes around our country. Even our homeless shelters which normally feed millions each Thanksgiving Day will be restricted to how they will be allowed to distribute meals to our Brothers and Sisters living on the streets of our towns, cities and country.

So many of us in our vast nation have been richly blessed to have enjoyed countless memorable Thanksgiving gatherings with our families and loved ones. It is one of my favorite holidays because it is one that all people in our great country can be united in celebrating and also one that allows families to celebrate being together without all types of demands such as worrying about decorations, gifts and presents, Christmas cards, wedding planning details, etc.

In more recent years, I was very disappointed that we as a country allowed, our annual Black Friday shopping madness, to slowly invade more of the great family day that is Thanksgiving. So many malls and stores had begun offering early bird Black Friday specials at midnight on Thanksgiving and even earlier that day which ruined the opportunity for all those workers to be able to enjoy one sacred holiday with their families each year. I suspect there will be fewer people this year who will want to rush into crowded malls or stores on Thanksgiving evening or night in the midst of this pandemic. That may not be a totally bad thing as it will allow these folks to instead spend some more precious and valuable time with their loved ones, they will be lucky enough to be with this year.

There will millions of families around our country next Thursday, who will have empty places at their tables that would have been filled by the more than 250,000 individuals that have died from the coronavirus. How so much in life can change in a year, in a month, in a day was never so real, as it is this year, for so many, who lost so much!

While this year is certainly different, it also calls us to look deeper and maybe appreciate all the more the numerous blessings in our lives. I lived in the heart of the epicenter in NYC during the tragic days of March and April. Although, it felt like being in a war zone with truckloads of body bags being stored in hundreds of refrigerated tractor trailers, I also witnessed bravery and heroics by first responders and essential workers that could only be paralleled in my lifetime by our 2001 9/11 Heroes. 

Those unbearable months in NYC and similarly today in so many other parts of our country and world that are experiencing similar spiking numbers of cases and an increasing death toll, must challenge us to never again take for granted the precious and irreplaceable gift of our loved ones in our lives. We may not be able to physically be together around the same table with everyone we desire to be with this year, but we can make real efforts to cherish those individuals and allow them to be significantly part of our celebrating a true day of Thanksgiving. We can remember them in our prayer and connect to them via calls, FaceTime or Zooms.

I invite you in the coming days, to join me in spending a few quiet minutes reflecting on the abundance of blessings in your own life so that we might each truly allow next Thursday to be a real day of actually Giving Thanks!