Folks,

This Thursday, November 27th, here in the United States, we will be celebrating the national holiday of Thanksgiving. For the rest of the world, it will be merely Thursday, a fine day of the week, but still just a Thursday. Close to Friday, but still a work day, and so it may as well be Tuesday.

Contrary to the popular beliefs of those outside the United States, Thanksgiving is not a national holiday to celebrate the gorging of oneself on domesticated fowl and the watching of football (American football, of course!). Not that there is anything wrong with gorging oneself and watching football, I personally think that would make for an outstanding national holdiay, yet not everyone agrees. Sing the national anthem, cheer as enormous men beat each other to a pulp, and try not to dribble gravy down your shirt. What is not to like about that? (Oh Please, don't give me the "gladiators in Rome" analogy. The Romans didn't eat gravy in the Colosseum. pfft!)

Instead, Thanksgiving is a time to give "thanks" for all that is good in our lives and to celebrate these blessings friends and familiy. Of course, after eight hours with friends and family, you are thankful for them leaving your house. That is a post-thanks tradition started at the original "Thankgiving". The original host, the Pilgrims of Massachusettes, whom the cultural elite would refer to today as "religious nut-jobs", asked the native Americans to join them in giving thanks for a bountiful harvest. Supposedly, the feast lasted several days, and you all know the saying, "Guests are like fish, and need to be thrown out after three days." You can just hear it now, "That Pocahontas thinks she is so smart! Why, just look at the mess of her squash cassarole". Yes, I'm pretty sure it sounded something like that.

Oh, and in case you didn't know, Friday is also a holiday for most Americans. Most of us need the extra day to recover our tryptophan laced and football addled brains. Surprisingly enough, this day is good for the economy.

Good bless you all who are traveling this week to see your families. I'll be back online Monday!