Counting my blessings, gobble by gobble

Friends ThanksgivingOther than the day the clocks “fall back” and I get an extra hour of sleep, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Thanksgiving is always reliably stuffed with good will, relatively little religious baggage, and predictably tasty food-except for that one year at my ex-Uncle’s house, where there were no mashed potatoes. NO mashed potatoes. The lack of mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving wasn’t the only factor leading to his “ex-Uncle” status, but that would have been more than enough for me.

Thanksgiving is also the national celebration of a guilt-free day without dieting. Sure, I sat in the Weight Watchers meeting and nodded my head with false enthusiasm when they talked about fat free pumpkin pie and guiltless gravy, but come Thursday those horrors will be completely erased from memory. Thanksgiving is a great time to take stock of your life, and be honest about your priorities. One of mine is real gravy. So I’ve got a lot to be grateful for, not the least of which is that I won’t be the one cooking on Thursday-and there will be mashed potatoes.

When I count my blessings, living near my family-and actually wanting to spend time with them-tops the list. Not only will I have to travel a mere seven minutes to attend our annual Thanksgiving gathering, but my husband, son, parents, mother-in-law, sister, various sisters- and brothers-in-laws, aunts, uncles, nieces and assorted friends who invariably show up to dinner are almost guaranteed to do something that will make writing my next column a snap.

Who says you have to survive a tragedy to find your writerly inspiration? I’ve been truly blessed with a wealth of comedic material in the form of my family and friends. And I’m thankful that, through trial and error, they’ve still found a way to love me, despite my shameless exploitation of their foibles for my own personal amusement and slight financial gain.

Though my friends may occasionally (okay often) inspire “bank account envy” and “real estate envy,” they never inspire “job envy,” thanks to my wonderful employers, they allow me to write for a living in a way that’s fun, intellectually stimulating, creative, and flexible enough to allow me to hang out with my son every day after school.

Speaking of school, I’m very grateful for the patience of my son’s teachers. Sure, I find his fascination with fake accents and made-up figures charming, but there’s a genetic payoff for me. That his teachers keep nodding their heads and smiling, day after day, fills me with wonder and gratitude.

Along with the big things-love, family, friends, health, work, and a wonderful support system-I’ve got a lot of little things to be grateful for this year. Unlimited long distance minutes, so I can talk to my best friend Jacqueline; my laptop computer and free wireless Internet at Cafe Zoma, so I can work during soccer practice; the treadclimber machines at my gym; those gracious 8 a.m. drivers who let me merge with traffic (you ungracious drivers know who you are); and of course, I’m especially thankful that it’s chocolate catalog season. Though I’ve never actually ordered anything from Hickory Farms, their food porn catalog has kept me company through many a long winter’s night.

The other advantage of daylight savings time is that I am getting to sleep a little bit earlier these days, which I’m grateful for. This brings me to my most favorite thing about my most favorite holiday-it’s the only day of the year that nobody asks if you’re sick or pregnant when you go to take a nap.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Share your blessings with Leslie at email. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on November 18, 2011.

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