Holiday Comment: Gift of Gratitude Brings Healing, Wonder

By Greg Wilson

Editor/Publisher, The Anderson Obsever

With 39 days left in 2022, we take time to celebrate Thanksgiving, that uniquely American holiday.

The Observer’s annual Gratitude Project offers some of your friends or neighbors talking about the transformative nature of gratitude. Some of the videos are available here.

And some audio musings on gratitude and Thanksgiving from 2015 are here. 

Thanksgiving is a holiday that has been marked, in various forms, on this continent since the late 1500s. 

Abraham Lincoln finally made Thanksgiving an official holiday, to be celebrated on the third Thursday of November, while in the middle of the Civil War in 1863.

His proclamation both reflected the long-observed intent of those who had gone before him as he wrote the holiday would be a time to: "Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently 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." 

The noble purpose of Thanksgiving Day being set aside to praise God for his provision and express our gratefulness for his "deliverances and blessings" still hold a place for many of as we gather with family and friends, show what is best about us by serving those who lack even the most basic of needs.

On Monday, AIM distributed a full Thanksgiving dinner to more than 700 families. AIM works 365 days a year to serve those in our community who might need a little help, and I am grateful for their decades of work.

Hope Ministries of the Upstate has been a safe, warm place for those in our community without a place to sleep at night and receive a hot breakfast in the morning. The group is working with other local non-profits to provide the Christmas gift of a backpack filled with essentials for those who spend most of their time on the streets. Find out more here.

The Salvation of Army of Anderson, which provides shelter and other assistance all year has started their Red Kettle holiday program which helps fund their work.

The more than 600 shut-ins in the county depend on Meals on Wheels of Anderson throughout the year for a daily hot meal delivered to their homes.

Others, including Clean Start, the Good Neighbor Cupboard, the Cancer Association of Anderson and countless churches in our community are turning away from the "national perverseness" of self-interest, express gratitude through kindness and generosity. 

Many families will gather around their tables Thursday, some will offer up a list of things for which they are grateful today. 

Meanwhile, so many in far-off lands will spend today day standing in long lines for rice or beans or a jug of clean water, as most of us here will eat from tables so full of food they can barely contain the weight.

The majority of us, though we may not have all the things we think we want, have more than we need, and hopefully are sharing some of our abundance with those who do not. 

But even though in some ways Thanksgiving Day still holds true the traditions, such as gratitude and demonstrations of such thankfulness through helping our neighbors, there are still some retail establishments open for business on Thanksgiving Day.

Over the past decade, a rising tide of voices has succeeded in convincing many of the largest retailers to shut down on Thanksgiving Day. 

Most of the largest retailers, including Target and Walmart, have responded to the cry of retail workers asking for a respite for the upcoming rush by closing and allowing workers to spend the day with family and friends.

This is both welcome and laudable, and long overdue.

But some, including CVS, Walgreens, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, Starbucks and Walgreens, have ignored the holiday and will open with business as usual Thanksgiving Day.

Their workers are being asked to clock in to miss the holiday while allowing others to leave their own family and friends to go shopping.

Americans who work retail, and already face growing pressure of long hours and generally often below-average wages, are now being asked to forfeit one of their rare holidays, the day set aside for family and gratitude.

One way to help end this practice is to refuse to shop on Thanksgiving Day. If these stores see zero traffic, they most likely will rethink their Scrooge-like practice.

Let’s send the message that Thanksgiving is not just another day to feed the cash register, and carry out the spirit with patience and good will leading into the holiday shopping rush. 

On Friday, while still drowsy from turkey and gravy, we face the next holiday challenge of maintaining a grateful heart towards those working in the world so full of bright, shiny objects vying for our attention and our wallet.

Be patience and kind. Those who have worked retail in the holidays will testify the level of stress already in place by the hordes of shoppers, is made more difficult by short-tempered, angry folks made their days much more difficult.

And remember why you are giving gifts to celebrate the Christmas season. The most common reason for giving a holiday gift is to express some form of compassion toward the one receiving the gift. But often shopping degrades into buying on auto-pilot, with little thought other than checking a name off a list.

And lost in the rush is our sense of gratitude. a gift that needs no wrapping paper, ribbon or space under the Christmas tree. Research is conclusive that those who approach life with a sense of gratitude, have fewer mental and physical problems, live longer, exhibit less stress, have a stronger immune system, and even handle loss far better than those who do not live life with the recognition that they do indeed have a lot for which to be grateful.

So how does a person find that place, a place where gratitude finds a regular place in our lives, especially during the holidays?  

The best place to start, according to more than one study, is to verbally acknowledge those things for which you are thankful every day. Not just during the holiday season.

Those in this study who wrote down a daily gratitude list for one full year expressed the experience profound change in their lives. Stories of overcoming depression, lowered blood pressure, and even healing of relationships were common among those who finished the year-long gratitude list project.

So make your first holiday gift this year one for yourself. Commit to a daily practice of gratitude, verbal or written for the next 365 days. You won't be sorry.

G.K. Chesterton once wrote:  Thanks are the highest form of thought... gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

And that is my Thanksgiving wish to all this season as you give thanks today, that you will experience happiness doubled by wonder.