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Here in the U.S., Thanksgiving is upon us.

Thanksgiving has long been one of my favorite holidays, though as my sons and their families grow older and I must share them more often with other families — who all live a lot closer to them — Thanksgiving has lost a bit of its original appeal as a time to sit around the dining table without the normal squabbles of young, competitive boys growing up.  Seems like only yesterday . . .

Still, our heritage of gathering together in community, sharing our bounty with others, and giving thanks for what we have is one I like to commemorate.  Especially when it feels as though it’s slipping away.

I’ve been collecting posters shared on Facebook in preparation for this post.  There have been many, but here’s one of my favorites:

Timely, to be sure.

Are we ready to laugh at ourselves yet?

Somedays I am. I’ve found that laughter is often the only way I have of coping with something too big for me to control. If I step back far enough, I can see the absurdity, and I can laugh. It helps keep my blood pressure down.

Here are two links for further Thanksgiving reading.

The first is the link to last year’s Thanksgiving post with the Thanksgiving scene from the memoir, At Home on the Kazakh Steppe (available at your local independent bookstore and Amazon).

This next one is an interview in the Indian Country Today Media Network, an online publication out of Oklahoma. This article, by Gale Courey Toensing, is entitled “The Wampanoag Side of the Tale.” I encourage you to choose this one.

Enjoy your bounty, whatever it is.

I’ll be grateful my problems are merely First World problems.

Attention, subscribers.

Beginning next week, I’ll be distributing my blog via Mail Chimp, which uses only email addresses.  Those of you who have subscribed via email need do nothing.  But those (18) of you who subscribe via an RSS Feed (i.e., your wordpress.com account), you will need to resubscribe.  But, when you do, you’ll get my new Bonus Scenes eBOOK as a thank you.

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OK, enough small print. Let’s go make those pies.