It is now officially a tradition to be working on formulating some Thanksgiving Day thoughts while Ruth is bustling around getting everything ready to go to her folks' house for lunch. It's also tradition now for her to be hassling me about taking the time to do this since I've been fooling around doing not much of anything all night long as I stayed up to smoke the turkey.

The other day as I was driving to work I noticed the sign of a Dollar General store on my daily route that said the store would be open on Thanksgiving.

My initial response was disgust at the commercialization of every conceivable holiday (Have you received and Arbor Day card yet? You probably will next year) and dismay at the kind of person who would need anything from Dollar General on Thanksgiving Day. I could not understand why anyone (other than the corporate fatcats who would be warm at home) would care enough to open the place on one of our society's big family holidays.

Then I considered the fact that perhaps there are people who would be glad to work on Thanksgiving day simply because one more days meager wages are so crucial as to outweigh any festivities.

It was then that I repented of my attitude towards the news I read on the sign and felt a deeper more profound level of thankfulness than I have felt in a long time.

I don't have to work on Thanksgiving Day. In fact, I took a half day on Wednesday. I am free to spend the day with my family and eat a delicious turkey I smoked myself.

Think about what you have- then consider how much of it you truly earned or created all by yourself. If the amount you come up with is greater than zero, look a little deeper and be honest with yourself.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Be thankful.