10 days of thanksgiving: family & friends
Well, here we are: the final day of our 10 days of thanksgiving, and the day we're going to celebrate the most important aspect of our lives, our families and friends.
Now, I have a great family -- my parents and sister are incredibly supportive of me, and my husband and daughter are my life -- but this Thanksgiving I find myself particularly thinking about friends of mine who have become like family. I am blessed by having many good friends, people who I know I can count on to help me talk through challenges and who I love dearly; but there are a small handful of people who I consider important to me on a level that sort of transcends the common use of "friend" (and for whom I feel a much more profound sense of love and loyalty than the way Facebook defines it, for example). These are people who, in addition to my family, I would lay down and die for. People who, as my friend Laura says, "I would fight a pack of wild dogs for."
They say that you can pick your friends but you can't pick your family, but I disagree: I think you can pick your family. And how wonderful that we can, yes? And for this fact alone, I feel deep, deep gratitude.
Day 10 prompt:
Today, reflect on the people in your life who are truly your family: not only those who are blood relations, or are part of your family by marriage, but also those friends to whom you know you'd donate a kidney without a second thought. The ones who you trust implicitly.
The ones for whom that pack of wild dogs better watch their backs.
Write a journal entry (or blog entry) about these awesome people, or better still, send them a note to let them know how much they mean to you. Of course, if you'd like to mention them in the comments below, I'd love to hear all about them.
And then, friends, let's officially say this is the beginning of the holiday season: the season that, no matter what holidays you celebrate in the next few weeks (or don't), we express with intention more "goodwill toward man" than we do at any other time of the year. The time for us to begin to celebrate each other as brothers and sisters.
And American friends, may you have a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow. May that turkey-induced tryptophan coma be ever so sweet.
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Haven't been playing along with our 10 days of thanksgiving, and want to catch up? Here are the prompts from the past 9 days!
Day 1: HOME
Day 2: GIFTS & SUPERPOWERS
Day 3: COOLER WEATHER
Day 5: CREATIVITY
Day 6: COMFORT FOOD & DRINKDay 7: MUSIC
Day 8: CHANGE
Day 9: TRADITION