{"id":33689,"date":"2016-11-25T10:41:09","date_gmt":"2016-11-24T21:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=33689"},"modified":"2016-11-25T10:50:34","modified_gmt":"2016-11-24T21:50:34","slug":"thinking-about-thanksgiving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2016\/11\/25\/thinking-about-thanksgiving\/","title":{"rendered":"Thinking About Thanksgiving"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Autumn<\/a>

It’s that season…<\/p><\/div>\n

Thanksgiving is not a festival we celebrate in New Zealand; it is after all, a celebration that is uniquely…well, I was going to say American, but I understand Canadians celebrate it, too, so perhaps I should say North American—while recognising that Mexico is also part of North America and Thanksgiving is not a Mexican festival (as far as I know.)<\/p>\n

Gosh, it gets complicated doesn’t it!! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

However, to get back on track, I have been thinking about Thanksgiving and everything I’ve read about it over the years and see on social (media) now. In many ways it seems to be (or have become ?– those more familiar with it may know) a mirror-image festival for Christmas, with the same or very similar focus on togetherness with family and friends.<\/p>\n

\"Rack<\/a>Or perhaps it’s that Christmas has become more like Thanksgiving? Family, friends, and community do seem like the core of any festival of giving thanks, after all. Especially right now in NZ—following the recent 7.8 earthquake which again did so much damage in towns like Kaikoura, Waiau, Seddon, and to a lesser extent Hanmer and Wellington—I am very mindful that family, friends, and community are at the core of our personal and social wellbeing.<\/p>\n

So I can see why even people outside of the US and Canada appreciate the Thanksgiving idea in that respect. Things like a roof over one’s head and food on the table are also very much part of the mix.<\/p>\n

Going beyond that and taking general stock, there are other things I would write on my own personal Thanksgiving black–or white–board.<\/p>\n

\"thornspell_handwritten-notes\"<\/a>

The gift of writing stories…<\/p><\/div>\n

One of these, and definitely something that’s well up the list, is the gift of storytelling: that the stories and characters are there with me all the time, that I have the ability to write them down, and that other people out there enjoy reading them, too — all of which adds up to a considerable privilege, really.<\/p>\n

Taking “time out” to remind<\/em> myself of the love of storytelling and writing, as well as the privilege of having readers, is important, too, in order to consciously reconnect with the good in what I do—which like any other aspect of life can have its ups and downs.<\/p>\n

All of which makes me think there may just be something in this whole Thanksgiving festival malarkey… \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanksgiving is not a festival we celebrate in New Zealand; it is after all, a celebration that is uniquely…well, I was going to say American, but I understand Canadians celebrate it, too, so perhaps I should say North American—while recognising that Mexico is also part of North America and Thanksgiving is not a Mexican festival […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funstuff","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33689"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33694,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33689\/revisions\/33694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}