Give Thanks...please!

Okay, so this post is going to be a bit of a rant. I've been debating with myself about writing this because I wanted my message to be clear yet not sound so witchy. But, if you know anything about me, being witchy is okay and it suits me well. SO here it goes!

We just finished Halloween; which for all intents and purposes is a holiday made to celebrate the dead. It's the one night, "All Hallows Eve", that supposedly lets the dead have contact with the living. If you follow Hollywood's versions, Halloween is the one night anything evil and disgusting can come kill you. If you follow Disney's versions bad people try to hurt you but then cool things like fairies and magical creatures come and save you. My point being that a lot of effort is placed into celebrating Halloween. Heck, we even dress up and eat candy and give out candy to other people for this "death" Holiday.

But right after Halloween, and I mean the second the clock strikes 12, all I see are light bulbs, stockings and Christmas decorations everywhere. It was November 1st and already people were ready to celebrate Christmas. What's wrong with that you might ask? Well, what the heck happened to Thanksgiving?!

Think about it. There's a Holiday every month...at least there is here in Hawaii because of some of our State Holidays. For November you've got Veteran's day and Thanksgiving. So why don't we celebrate it? Other than eating and getting fat I mean. We go from worshipping the dead to clawing for gifts! We completely skip over the one holiday meant to give thanks!

Some may argue that celebrating Christmas is better since it's worshipping Christ. No it's not! First of all, Christ was not born in December he was born in April. Secondly, if Christmas were about the birth of Christ would we really be killing ourselves to make sure the perfect tree was hanging in our homes, that the decorations were all up, that the food we're going to stuff ourselves with is prepared correctly, that the perfect gifts are bought for everyone? Nothing about the Lord in any of that!

To make a long rant short...probably too late for that...I ask, why are we so ungrateful? As American's we should be anything but! We are a part of the chosen land, meant to do great things and pave the way for the Lord's gospel. And what do we do with that responsibility? We sweep it under the rug as a nuisance and go on with our lives thinking other things are important; like our kids soccer game, the laundry, making sure our dessert tates and looks better than Sister so-and-so, and the ungrateful list goes on.

What happened to us? When did we overlook this great, all be it fake, holiday. Okay, so the Puritans didn't have a feast with the Indians exactly the way it's been told to us in school. But it's the message behind the holiday that matters! So please, to all of you who read this...make Thanksgiving a huge part of your holiday season this year; as big or even bigger than you're planning to make Christmas. Some of you already do that and I applaud you. I'm going to make sure I do it up big this year and I hope my rant has inspired you to do the same!