Seven Things to Do for Thanksgiving and Black Friday: 7QT VIII Seriatim

I am posting my Seven Quick Takes article (a short one) early this week so that I can spend Thanksgiving driving to Pennsylvania to see my parents and can spend the weekend enjoying their company. (And reading Evangelii Gaudium so that I can resume the blog promptly when I return!). Here are seven other things I am going to do, which I recommend and pass on.

STAY HOME

There will be plenty of time for Christmas shopping. Do not get swept up into the material madness that says you must knock everyone else down to get to the stores on Friday. It is a virtuous discipline, and guards against consumerism, if you forget for a day that a world of acquiring things exists outside your four walls.

EAT LEFTOVERS

One of the great joys of Thanksgiving for me is that my mom will divide the leftover stuffing into separate containers so that my dad and I won’t worry that someone ended up with more of it. Thanksgiving is a feast; the point is to get bloated and expansive with tryptophan and wine. And then you will be too lethargic to go shopping on Black Friday, anyway.

PRAY

Here’s a powerful meditation, if it has not struck you: “prays” and “praise” sound exactly the same. Praise is superior to any other prayer. If you have favorite psalms, pray them (slowly) over Thanksgiving. If you don’t have favorite psalms, search around for them. Psalm 27 has always been a favorite of mine.

WATCH “PLANES, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES”

It is a comfort to me to know that the same movie is waiting for me at the same time every year. And this one is a funny and touching story about the longing to be home.

REMIND YOURSELF WHAT THANKSGIVING IS ABOUT

It is about people who left their home and gave up everything and endured hardship upon hardship for the freedom to worship God after their own conscience. And God sustained them, and they knew that it was right to take a day to stop their work and their pursuit of things (don’t go shopping on Black Friday) and praise Him.

STOP

It is easier now than it has ever been, with our mobile devices, to take our work and our technological distractions with us wherever we go. The more we connect remotely, the more we are disconnected locally. Resist that. Be with those sitting next to you. Look at them, not your device.

MAKE A DIFFERENT LIST

Not a Christmas shopping list, but a list of what you are thankful for. Every Thanksgiving it has been a ritual in my family not to say a traditional prayer before the meal, but instead to have everyone at the table name one thing they are thankful for. There is far too much complaining. We live in challenging economic times, but for all of that we are the wealthiest and luckiest people in the history of the world. Whatever challenges we have faced, we have come around to the end of another year. God has sustained us, for He is the creator and the sustainer of all things. Keep in mind how He has sustained you.

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