I am sitting in my kitchen waiting for my pumpkin pie to finish baking. The simple things, the traditions of Thanksgiving.

As I sit in my cozy kitchen I am also thinking about those less fortunate this Thanksgiving. In particular, the elderly who lost their homes and their memories in the devastating Barclay Friends fire almost a week ago in West Chester.

I am thankful and grateful for my friends,family, and neighbors . I am thankful and grateful more specifically for my husband and stepson. We have a happy home that makes me feel like I am the luckiest woman on the planet.

Thanksgiving has roots in 1621 when the Plymouth colonists shared a harvest feast with Wampanoag Indians. This autumn harvest festival is acknowledged today as the origins of our American Thanksgiving.

In 1863 during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln created in November the national holiday we know today. He proclaimed a national Thanksgiving holiday, and here we are!

A fun historical fact is Lincoln decreed Thanksgiving to be the last Thursday of November. But during the depression in 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to move the holiday up a week. Something about spurring retail sales. But public outcry caused Roosevelt to sign a bill into law in 1941 making Thanksgiving officially the last Thursday in November.

There are as many ways to make a Thanksgiving dinner as there are ways to set the table. The melting pot that is our country means there quite a lot of different nationalities and races putting their spin on Thanksgiving dinner. Every family has their own traditions.

As we come together tomorrow with either friends or family, remember those who came before us. Remember friends and family.

Say a prayer tomorrow on Thanksgiving for the United States of America. I do not feel the strife and anger from coast to coast is what the founding fathers or even those early Pilgrims had in mind.

We have a great country and the politicians who want to screw everything up be damned. We have a lot to be thankful for and we can’t allow them to define who we are. They work for us. And if they aren’t working for us, we replace them one election at a time. From the smallest Borough all the way to the White House.

Happy Thanksgiving. Be grateful for what you have, don’t expend negative energy coveting what you don’t have. Enjoy the day.

Thanks for stopping by.