Every Thanksgiving since I was five, my family has played a game we call The Thankful Game. This comes after dinner and before pie, and everyone who is present, whether family member or visitor, is required to participate. We begin by taking lots of paper, tearing it into squares, and then everyone takes several squares and writes down what they are thankful for. These "thankfuls" range from the serious gratitude we feel for the Gospel, for our family, and for our jobs; to sillier claims of gratitude for Brian Bosworth (the Boz), my brother Peter's pectorals, and..."A"? We put all these "thankfuls" in a bag, shake them up, and everybody draws out a handful and we read them aloud.
Also, immediate family members are expected to send in their "thankfuls" if they're not able to be present for the thankful game. While on a mission, we mail them to my parents. If we're celebrating Thanksgiving with in-laws, as I am this year, we must drive over to my parents and deliver them in advance so they can be dumped in the bag to be read with the other thankfuls.
One of the problems is that the game has gotten longer and longer as everyone has written more and more each year (and as there are more and more people in the family each year). I have already written my "thankfuls" and will deliver them tomorrow, but to try and keep the game to a more reasonable length, I left out some things that are, perhaps, frivolous, but are things I am nontheless grateful for. So I decided to do a list here. Here are ten things I am grateful for--leaving out the obvious family, heater, and chocolate.
2009 Grateful List:
1. "Leave it to Beaver": I was a long time coming around to this show. But, we don't have cable, and one of the few stations we have is RTN, which is just a lot of old tv shows. I love it! But just the idea of Leave it to Beaver used to make me cringe, until I finally started watching it, and now I eat it up with jam. Plus, Wally makes me think what Bobby was like at that age. Except for not so short.
2. Indoor Play Areas: We got a membership to the Kidsquest Children's Musuem, and I love taking Mabel there. With the weather being cold and wet, and our home being rather limited on toys and space, it's great to have a spacious indoor play area that I can go to almost anytime, with lots of toys I don't have to pick up! I also love the Tuesday playgroups at church, although I do have to help pick up toys.
3. Walk-Aerobics: I've been doing these also since the weather turned foul, and since I injured my knee and can't run anyway. They're obviously not as intense as running, but they still get my heart rate up, and anyway, I'm not so pooped afterward as I am when I run. I love them, and if Leslie Sansome wants to give me money for endorsing her tapes, I won't refuse it.
4. Small Batch Baking: This is a cookbook I got from the library, and I'm lobbying to get it as a Christmas gift. It's written by a woman from the south, which is always a good sign, and it has tons of delicous recipes that will serve just one or two. Cookie recipes that make 3 to 6 cookies, recipes for tiny cakes (baked in aluminum cans. Brilliant!), pies, cobblers, breads, etc. Now that's what I call portion control!
5. Archive.org: This is a website that has public domain books, movies, radio programs, among other things, and you wouldn't believe how much good stuff has fallen into the public domain. While I'm not much interested in reading a book on the computer, they have audio books (read by volunteers, of course) that can be played from your computer, or downloaded and burned onto a CD. There's also gadloads of classic old movies, and old time radio shows, which I used to checkout from the library, on broken-down old tapes, but now I can get them instantly on my computer. Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Suspense, Dragnet...sigh, the list is endless, and so's the fun.
6. They Might Be Giants and Caspar Babypants: Caspar Babypants in Chris Ballew, the lead singer of The Presidents of the United States of America, which was a favorite band of mine back in junior high/high school. Well, the guy had kids (or, kid) and now has a couple albums of kids music he's written, which is every bit as delightful as his adult music, but with no fear of swears or other questionable material. Plus, you can listen to his entire first album free on his website, which I don't have on hand, so you'll have to google caspar babypants to get it. They Might Be Giants has been and is quite possibly my favorite band of all time, and I recently discovered they're kids music (I think they have at least 5 or 6 albums, and counting, complete with groovy music videos). I'm currently listening to Here Come the 1,2,3's until Here Comes Science comes out. I get them all free at the library, but am also lobbying for these for Christmas.
7. Library Programs: Speaking of the Library...I'm crazy about my tax dollars at work in the different children's programs through KCLS: storytime, fun little concerts (including Caspar Babypants!), plays, etc. I can't really call them free, but since it's something we've paid for with our taxes that I actually can appreciate and enjoy, I like to cash in on that. Plus, it gets us out of the house.
8. Aeropostale: The poor man's American Eagle (which is the poor man's Abercrombie, I think). They've got great clothes, great sales, and annoying music, but two out of three ain't bad.
9. P.G. Wodehouse: My favorite author. Like somebody famous once said, "You cannot be miserable while reading Jeeves and Wooster, and I've tried." I'd say this pretty fairly applies to all of his works. The happiest, bounciest stuff there is, his writing is bound to cheer you up.
10. Mad Libs: I loved these as a kid, and recently bought one on a whim. Bobby and I started doing them together, and we laugh so hard we cry. They're as good as I remember them. Better, perhaps, since I have a bigger vocabulary now.
Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!
