Thanksgiving happens this weekend. Well, at least in Canada it does. Which lends itself nicely to thinking about turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy and all manner of butter-laden vegetables. Oh, and pie! Don’t forget the pumpkin pie. With real whipped cream. Duh.

Okay, for many of us, some version of this meal encapsulates Thanksgiving. But is it really the point? Isn’t the meal supposed to be a visible (not to mention tasty) expression of the the things we are thankful for?

Ah, of course: thanks-giving.

When I Googled “Books about Thanksgiving”, the usual south-of-the border offerings appeared, pretty much all children’s books, many featuring black-and-white turkeys and Pilgrims in their matching black and white outfits. Or sometimes Pilgrims with a turkey slightly after it lost its outfit. A Canadian Thanksgiving motif doesn’t even register.

When I Googled “Books about Thankfulness”, again it was children’s books that primarily populated the results – indeed a full 9 out of every 10 books on thankfulness is aimed at children. Which makes me think that thankfulness is probably a very simple concept to grasp: even a child can understand it.

When our boys were small lads, we taught them to recite the things they were thankful for during bedtime prayers or around the table. Much like Steve Carell’s character in Anchorman shouting, “I love lamp!”, the boys would swivel their eyes around the room and say, “Thank you for my bed. Thank you for my toys. Thank you for my daddy. “ They were tangible, the things they were thankful for.

It’s a good place to start, with the concrete and the visible. As adults, we can be grateful for the things and people immediately around us. But it’s easy to get caught up with what we don’t have or aren’t satisfied with. Our house has been for sale for nearly four months as we make plans for our next step. It’s a wonderful house to bide our time in but it’s a bit of a bother to keep super tidy for impromptu showings. Plus we really thought we’d be packing up boxes by now.

Years ago I read a poem about being thankful for the opposite of the usual things: heating bills = a warm house, complaining about the government = free speech, clothes that are snug = more than enough to eat. You get the idea.

This weekend I will welcome home my kids and their friends for the weekend. They will sleep in their old rooms and leave empty potato chip bowls on the coffee table. We will spend more on groceries and more time feeding the crowd. We will wonder if we will be living somewhere else next Thanksgiving or if we will find ourselves still here with a ‘For Sale’ sign on the front lawn. It will be noisy and fun and messy and happy and crazy and good – because you can’t really separate those things out with family.

And I will be thankful for it all.