Finding Ways and Reasons to Give Thanks
By Susan Law Corpany

It was the day after Halloween, and the local oldies radio station began playing Christmas carols, nonstop. Call me crazy, but I think we need something between begging people for candy and asking the big fat guy in the red suit for toys.

Let me think. If only I had a reminder of some sort. Maybe a big rabbit. No, that’s been done. I think Thanksgiving needs a mascot. Sure we have the cornucopia, but it just sits there. Perhaps the turkey that is pardoned every year by the president (insert political joke of your choice here), would be a good symbol. His motto could be “If you can’t be grateful for what you have, be grateful for what you escape.”

The mall could set up a display and kids could sit on his lap and tell him what they are grateful for and leave a canned good in the giant horn of plenty for feeding the needy. The stores could do big displays of thank-you notes in order to capitalize on the event.

Take a moment and think back. When was the last time you wrote or received a bona-fide thank-you note? Sorry, e-mails, no matter how heartfelt, even with emoticons, just aren’t the same.

I got a thank-you note recently. It was from my son-in-law, Josh, thanking us for giving them a place to stay when they came to visit us in Hawaii. Gee, isn’t that just expected, that parents put up their kids? This isn’t the first thank-you note I’ve gotten from Josh. I got one after his first visit when Becky brought him to meet us, and I’ve gotten several since. That first thank-you cemented my feelings that Josh was a keeper.

I thanked Josh in person when I got here and told him how much I appreciate getting his notes of gratitude. Somehow I knew there was a mother behind this. “Was your mother militant about having you write thank-you notes when you were a kid?”

“We didn’t get to play with the Christmas toys until the thank-you notes were written.”

This explains why he wrote that nice note about how special he thinks Becky is.

I can’t say that I diligently trained my son in the fine art of writing thank-you notes, but there is a Thanksgiving tradition we followed that I would like to suggest to our readers. Every November we would go through his toys and clothes and decide which things he had outgrown and make a sizable donation to a nearby thrift store. If everyone would do this, the thrift stores would be replenished in time for Christmas so that families without a lot of means could find Christmas gifts and clothes for their children.

You can take the time to teach your children to be good stewards over their possessions and that if they don’t wear it, use it or play with it anymore, it can be shared with someone else who might need it.

Last night I was babysitting my little granddaughter, Lucy, and watching her pat her doll, lay her down and put a blanket over her. I said to myself, “It doesn’t get better than this.” I think we should turn the month of November into a month of expressing gratitude for our blessings.

I gave Josh a card thanking him for being willing to let his mother-in-law come stay and participate in the miracle of a new baby. It was a humorous card with a quote by George Burns. “Happiness is having a warm loving close-knit family — in another state.” In his case, the in-laws are out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

See, everyone’s got something to be grateful for.

Susan Law Corpany grew up in Salt Lake City. She attended Utah State University and the University of Utah, and she is currently attending the University of Hawaii at Hilo, on the big island of Hawaii, where she now lives. She is married to Thom Curtis, a sociology professor at UHH. She has one son, a stepdaughter and five stepsons. She recently became a grandmother to the world's most beautiful baby girl and will, on request, furnish the e-mail addresses of her unmarried returned missionary sons to eligible young ladies in an attempt to get more such wonderful grandbabies.

She has stored up a half century of wit and wisdom and began a couple of decades ago to download it onto the printed page. Widowed in her twenties, a series of books resulted from the experience. She is the author of Brotherly Love, Unfinished Business, Push On and Are We There Yet? She considers herself sort of a cross between Erma Bombeck and Eliza R. Snow and says she writes under her first married name "To honor my first husband and not to embarrass my current one." She is currently working on several other novels, and is collaborating on a humorous self-help book called, "Why Don't the Airlines Ever Lose My Emotional Baggage?"

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