Tomorrow we will be celebrating Thanksgiving.  It is a day in which our homes will be filled with the glorious smells of roasting poultry and other culinary creations, which when voluminously combined in our bellies, will leave us in a sluggish state of gastric nirvana that draws us to the nearest couch.  (Yes, I know many of you probably deep fry your turkeys…but hopefully your house isn’t filled with the smells of a turkey being deep fried because more than likely it will also be filled with the

sounds of smoke detectors going off, and a frantic call to 911 to let them know you just set your house on fire.  Be sure to deep fry your turkeys away from your house or anything else you value should that turkey seek to avenge itself from beyond the grave.  That concludes my public service announcement of this blog post….).  But I digress.

In addition to stuffing ourselves with too much food, there will be also the traditional talk and discussion of “what we’re thankful for”.  During this week, young students across the nation are given the assignment to write or draw about something for which they are thankful.  On Thanksgiving Day itself, for anyone watching TV, we’ll get the steady stream of “I’m thankful for…” statements from football players, sports announcers, celebrity parade hosts and other talking heads.  And they’ll all be thankful for the usual feel-good PC things like health, family, friends and country.  All of us will usually say those same things between forkfuls of our second helping of pumpkin pie as well.

But I think we’ve lost the purpose of observing Thanksgiving Day.  We all give thanks for something on Thanksgiving Day.  But in the act of giving, it is implied that there is a receiver.  There is someone to receive that which is being given.  If we are giving thanks, to whom are we giving it?

Which leads me to wonder why those who claim to be atheists celebrate Thanksgiving.  If they are giving thanks, to whom are they giving their thanks?  The universe? Evolution?  Fate? DNA & Richard Dawkins? Karma? Society?  Government? Themselves?  An atheist participating in Thanksgiving Day is nonsensical.  The best they can do is give thanks for something.  Why do they need a national holiday in which they practice good manners (i.e.- saying ‘thank you’)?

And that is where society seems to be stuck as well.  Thanksgiving has become a national holiday in which we frivolously do an accounting of all the good things that we’re thankful for.  And when a holiday becomes frivolous, it becomes expendable.  Have you noticed this year how the retailers have expanded Black Friday into a week long celebration?  The retailers aren’t stupid.  They know as a society we are insatiably greedy, and Thanksgiving is merely just a day to stuff our faces while we politely say a very hollow sounding ‘thank you’ and think of things we’re going to buy the next day.

We as Christians are called to be better than that!  I know Christians will be giving thanks to God on Thanksgiving, and do so most other days as well, but I think in order for Thanksgiving to have meaning again and in order for us to grab it back from the wretched hands of the retailers, Christians need to be even more deliberate and purposeful in our giving thanks to God.  Let’s stop being thankful for stuff on Thanksgiving Day, and simply be thankful to God.  We need to be vocal in reminding others that we are simply thankful to God.  Make it a goal on Thanksgiving to say “I am thankful to God” or “I am thankful to God for….”.  Each of us needs to hear us saying that.  Society needs to hear us Christians being deliberate and purposeful in simply giving our thanks to God.  If your church offers a thanksgiving service or Mass tomorrow, how about attending it?  Society needs to see us Christians being thankful to God as well.

So for this Thanksgiving let’s be deliberate in giving our thanks to God.