A LECKBAND THANKSGIVING

This hasn't been our typical Thanksgiving. In the past we've had all our children & grand-children with us, & we've celebrated Christmas. This year Craig our son-in-law was absent. He's in Texas for Nebraska Air National Guard training. Our son Nathan, our daughter-in-law Laura, Calvin & Claire stayed home because of COVID. (None of them have it. They're just playing it safe.) They had their own Thanksgiving celebration last night in Eagan, MN. It would have been our first Thanksgiving/Christmas with Claire, who was born last January.

We enjoyed our traditional Thanksgiving dinner yesterday:  roast turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy (Rachel made the mashed potatoes.), Lois' world famous dressing, green been casserole, corn with cream cheese, sweet potato casserole (I personally abhor sweet potatoes), crescent rolls & butter, & Rachel's pumpkin dessert, which took the place of our usual pumpkin, pecan, & apple pies.

Tonight we'll have Christmas. We have presents for Brianna, Hadley, & Bentley.

TRENDING

* "Supreme Court blocks NY from enforcing COVID limits on churches."  Drudge Report, 11/26

* "Cambridge uni students strip naked for 'best bum' competition."  Ditto

* "STUDY:  Cynics more likely to have heart disease."  Ditto

* "Wiping down groceries? Experts say keep risk in perspective."  Ditto

* "Democrats warn that excessive thankfulness may lead to conservatism."  Babylon Bee

* "State governor frees all drug dealers to provide prison space for families celebrating Thanksgiving."  Ditto

* "After fending off pandemic challenger, Planned Parenthood retains title for most Americans killed in 2020."  Ditto

* "Liberals urge nation to respect minorities' opinions until those opinions contradict them."  Ditto

* Ocasio-Cortez desperately trying to make math work on universal healthcare add up while punching numbers into a potato."  Ditto

SUFFERING & GRATITUDE

"Christians take a distinctly radical view: that suffering is neither an evil to be evaded nor a punishment handed out routinely, like some kind of divine speeding ticket, but something to be entered into willingly in order to become not godlike but more fully and more perfectly human. We learn to be grateful not only for the alleviation of suffering but for the suffering itself — that, too, is a gift. We discover ultimate gratitude when we discover the Ultimate Object of our gratitude. Learning that ultimate gratitude does not necessarily mean wandering around the desert in a supernatural daze, though that has worked for many great men in the past. Some of them even sought out such a wild place as Massachusetts, landing there in the winter in rickety boats, like madmen. They went ashore and gave thanks to God.

"We need not go so far, and, besides, we have business to attend to here at home, to which our attention is likely to be enforced for a few more months. Gratitude may not make us saints, but it should leave us cheerful, useful, modest, and patient, and ever mindful of those gifts and blessings that we could not possibly hope to deserve."  Kevin Williamson, National Review Online, 11/26

THANKSGIVING IS NOT A LIE

"We live in a time of heedless iconoclasm, and so one of the country’s oldest traditions is under assault. Thanksgiving is increasingly portrayed as, at best, based on falsehoods and, at worst, a whitewash of genocide against Native Americans . . . 

"If we didn’t have such a day — to stop and express gratitude to our Creator, to be thankful for the abundance of this great land, to gather with friends and family — we really would have to invent it."  Rich Lowry, NRO, 11/26

THE COST OF THANKSGIVING

"Put differently, the total Thanksgiving Day dinner bill in the United States fell, even though the U.S. population increased. With every hungry mouth comes a pair of hands and a brain capable of invention and innovation. So, on this Thanksgiving Day, let us be thankful for all the American inventors and innovators who enrich our lives with plentiful food and, hopefully, a cure for the COVID-19 pandemic."  Marian Tupy,

GIVING THANKS

"Finally, let's give thanks for this wonderful country we live in and the generous people within it. We just experienced a terrible year. Tragedy, deaths, the pandemic and political fights tore us apart. And yet, through it all, through yelling and screaming, through the many tears shed, it's important to recognize all of the remarkable acts of charity and love that fellow Americans have shown one another: young people delivering food to elderly neighbors housebound by the virus, breweries making hand sanitizers for their consumers and communities, church volunteers feeding the poor, donors filling the coffers of thousands of charitable organizations devoted to those in need.

"America's civil society is like no other that I know of. Americans are the most generous people in the world. And I, for one, am grateful to live in such a place and call it home. I hope you are, too. Happy Thanksgiving!" Veronique de Rugy, Townhall, 11/26

LINCOLN'S PROCLAMATION

"Today, the words Lincoln wrote in his proclamation seem fitting: "(F)ervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union."  Jackie Gingrich Cushman, Townhall, 11/26