doesn’t require visiting the mall<\/b>. That is a holiday celebration I can get behind!<\/li>\nYou don’t need to be religious to celebrate. Thanksgiving doesn’t require you to be down with an organized belief system other than thankfulness. And we all know that people can be giving and kind without dogma. Thanksgiving is about being human not whether or not you believe in a deity. <\/li>\nIt falls on a Thursday every year so if you are not in retail you can generally take Friday off and have a four day weekend. Who doesn’t love four days away from the drudgery? And after all those carbs you will definitely need the time to recoup. <\/li>\nThanksgiving is the last hurrah before the commercial holiday season. It’s status as kind of in the shadow of Christmas (and in some stores Thanksgiving barely exists at all) makes it a relaxing day that doesn’t have to be anything but exactly what it is. A day to gather, eat, drink, and relax. <\/li>\nYou don’t need to have a family to enjoy Thanksgiving. It is a holiday that can be shared with friends, colleagues, acquaintances, etc. People invite each other over to share in the day and there are no family only rituals that make the guest feel awkward. <\/li>\nPeople show their good nature and charity. Christmas spirit has got nothing on the charity shown on Thanksgiving. People volunteer to serve fellow humans, give money to good causes, and generally express a charitable nature on and around the holiday. And religious affiliation makes no difference. Helping others is something that humans can do no matter their religious affiliation. Even those that have no affiliation. <\/li>\nThanksgiving is not in your face like other holidays. People aren’t upset if you wish them a happy turkey day instead of Thanksgiving. There is only one day to gather and the celebration revolves around food and not gifts. It’s a good time without all the pomp and circumstance. <\/li>\nThere is a parade dedicated to it. In NYC. I think that seals it. Thanksgiving rocks. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\nEnjoy your Thanksgiving, however you celebrate. I hope it is relaxing and fun. It is the last hurrah before the holiday craziness, after all, so take advantage of it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
American Thanksgiving. A day to gather together with family and friends and eat massive amounts of carbs. A day to remember the Pilgrims and pretend that the very first Thanksgiving was festive for them AND the Natives. After all, rewriting history is what we are all about as a nation so why should today be … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “What are you grateful for?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-peace"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2XCO6-ka","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1163,"url":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/?p=1163","url_meta":{"origin":1250,"position":0},"title":"from the archives – the holiday spirit – 13 november 2008","author":"chantale","date":"19 November 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Now that my birthday is over (and it was lovely I might add) I am ready to move on to the other November holiday. I bet you thought (judging from the title) that this was going to be a post about the December holiday season. Well - you were wrong!\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "rise up!"","block_context":{"text":"rise up!","link":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/?cat=84"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":105,"url":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/?p=105","url_meta":{"origin":1250,"position":1},"title":"2002.12.18 – holidays the way they should be","author":"chantale","date":"7 December 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Holiday shopping. A time to wade through the endless sea of shoppers at your local mall and fight them off with your bags of holiday treats. A joyous time of peace and goodwill, as long as everyone on your list receives exactly (or something close to) what they asked for.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "heia"","block_context":{"text":"heia","link":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/?cat=176"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1166,"url":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/?p=1166","url_meta":{"origin":1250,"position":2},"title":"The Holiday Rush","author":"chantale","date":"18 December 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"During my time writing for Backwash (Hippiegrrl Explains It All - archived here), I wrote many posts on holiday shopping and alternatives to giving store bought, big box stuff. Over the years, the writer and I have tried many alternative ways of shopping (or not shopping) for the holidays. Taking\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "activism"","block_context":{"text":"activism","link":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/?cat=96"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1173,"url":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/?p=1173","url_meta":{"origin":1250,"position":3},"title":"May Holidays and Changes","author":"chantale","date":"11 May 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"This week has been crazy. I began a new job and it has been somewhat overwhelming. I love it, but it is taking me some time to get up to speed. Anyone that knows me knows that I am not good with change or being behind the eight ball. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "rise up!"","block_context":{"text":"rise up!","link":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/?cat=84"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1165,"url":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/?p=1165","url_meta":{"origin":1250,"position":4},"title":"from the archives – here we go… 26 november 2007","author":"chantale","date":"28 November 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The holiday season is here. Black Friday (or Buy Nothing Day as we like to celebrate it) has come and gone and we are left with images of crazed shoppers trampling each other on the way into the local Wal-Mart. Highly motivated, yes, but for the right reasons? In an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "peace"","block_context":{"text":"peace","link":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/?cat=41"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":285,"url":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/?p=285","url_meta":{"origin":1250,"position":5},"title":"2004.12.20 – the holiday rush","author":"chantale","date":"9 December 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Back to the holiday shopping season. I realize that it is a bit past now, but for me it has really just begun. The tendancy for me is to wait until the last possible second for everything, get really really stressed out and generally catch a cold of some kind\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "heia"","block_context":{"text":"heia","link":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/?cat=176"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1250"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1258,"href":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1250\/revisions\/1258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hippiegrrlexplainsitall.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}