perspective by tradition

Gaining perspective can be a difficult thing, given the hype tied to the holidays. But how about finding perspective based on tradition? Can we, during Thanksgiving and Christmas, find the truest meaning, the purest understanding by simple traditions? Maybe.

Our family has a tradition at Thanksgiving, now running 10 years. We have an ear of Indian corn in a mason jar that is passed around the circle of family members gathered, each plucking a kernel off the cob, placing it in the jar with a comment of what they are thankful for. It can be silly & comedic at times-given our family-but, it was pretty heart-tugging this year.

My senior uncle who has battled some health issues over the last year, made this comment "you know, I'm thankful for God.....I've been angry at God for a long time because of my boys, but I can see beyond that now." His two sons were killed in separate car accidents. And then my great aunt had her turn, she also struggled with some real health issues this year-she's 87-but she commented that while in the hospital in so much pain she begged them to put her to sleep. She was thankful for life, to still be with our family. Both my uncle and great aunt also had this one strand in common, they were both so thankful for my mom for helping them so much.

So, I guess we can forgive my mom for accidentally getting the thankfulness kernels mixed up with just plain old regular kernels in her zeal to decorate the Thanksgiving table this year. We've calculated that there should be approximately 200 kernels of corn in the mason jar-but no one has set out to counting. Yet.

I trust you had a great time of thanks-giving this year.