What images come to mind when you hear the word Thanksgiving? For one of my best friends, and how her family does Thanksgiving, it conjures up Norman Rockwell type images – a warm cozy picture of an aproned woman presenting a perfectly roasted bird on a silver platter for beautifully dressed people sitting around a table that Martha Stewart herself could have set! For a friend who’s a gourmet chef – it’s not about green bean casserole (my favorite!!) she’s making homemade pies and sweet potato soufflé. For some, Thanksgiving is just the preamble to the shopping frenzy that occurs on Friday. For others I know it’s all about the football! For my family, it’s all of these and none of these.
Traditionally, I’ve focused on the THANKS part of THANKSgiving. Filling the day (and week, and really the whole month of November) with sentiments of gratitude and acknowledgement of all I have to be THANKfull for. This year, I’ve decided I’d like to focus on the GIVING part of ThanksGIVING. What can I GIVE back? And it’s not always something physical or tangible. Maybe it’s about GIVING more joy to those around me. Maybe it’s about GIVING more love to the world. Maybe it’s about GIVING more love to myself. Maybe it is about GIVING more service or more money to those in need. But the focus is on the GIVING! This THANKSGIVING my kids and I are going to focus on a project for the month of February. It all started from a school project Jordan had to do last month in seventh grade. He had to pick a cause and make a video encouraging people to donate to his cause. He chose the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society because Chelsea, the sister he never met, died of leukemia before he was even born. His video won best video in his grade and hundreds of kids in his school viewed it. (CLICK HERE to see Jordan’s video – it only takes a couple of minutes and a tissue!) It made such an impact on his teachers and fellow students, that they decided to do a fundraiser.
As his teachers shared this idea with me, I realized there is also a real need for bone marrow donors. Right now more than 47% of candidates that would benefit from a bone marrow transplant don’t have a donor. So we decided, why not team the fundraiser with a drive to get people to be a donor? It’s a simple swab of the cheek that can determine your marrow and match you up with a person in need.
So this ThanksGIVING we’re going to spend the holiday mapping out our campaign for February to get the word out in the biggest way possible to sign up the most donors possible to get those people who really need it a MATCH! You’ll be hearing more from me on this and that’s a PROMISE!! It’s a way we can all GIVE – maybe even GIVE someone LIFE! What bigger way to give than that?? So this THANKSGIVING, please let me know the ways you are giving THANKS and the things, tangible or intangible, that you are GIVING back! At its very core, THANKSGIVING is not about food or football or shopping. It’s about connections with people, reflecting on the many things that make up our abundant lives and then GIVING from that place of a full plate!
With a heart full of THANKS and GIVING,
