Thanktivus

By Stacy Johnson

In my hectic and sometimes over scheduled life, occasionally I have to write on my calendar "Appointment" and schedule it for a certain time and day. Depending on the amount of free time available, sometimes my appointment is an hour, sometimes it is three. This way, when someone calls and asks me for a favor or needs something (because I am a "yes girl"), I can look at my calendar and honestly answer "no" because I have an appointment scheduled right then. It doesn't even matter that sometimes during my appointment I watch several episodes of Little House on the Prairie or The Waltons, the point is I schedule time for myself once in a while. But, people who know me can be fairly confident that if I can help them, I will.

Thanktivus 2013

We have a large extended family close by so we are blessed to spend all our holidays with them, sometimes upwards of 50 people are at our get togethers. But as our children were speedily growing, our calendar seemed to be packed tighter and tighter and our moments of just being the 10 of us became significantly less. 

So in the fashion of calendaring time for just myself, several years ago we came up with a holiday that we put on the calendar and has become somewhat special to us. We call our holiday Thanktivus. (If it sounds a lot like Festivus for the Rest of Us from the famous 90's television show Seinfeld, you are correct. If you don't know what I'm talking about, here is a clip from the show.)

There are no airing of grievances, feats of strength or the Festivus Pole, instead we focus on being together and talk about what we are grateful for while eating a full on holiday meal complete with leftovers.  There is very little that can deter us from our special day although this year our dinner did end with some wrestling on the dining room floor. But I can deal with that as long as nothing gets broken...