Thanksgiving | McClelland Miscellanea

Category Archives: Thanksgiving

November 21, 2007 · 12:38 am

Thanksgiving Service

(I thought that I would be attending a Thanksgiving service down here in Pennsylvania. I went to the service last year and didn’t realize going in that there would be an opportunity for the audience to participate. I decided that I would prepare this time around. This is what I planned to say.)

My wife and I are visiting from Massachusetts.

We have plenty to be thankful for. This would probably be the wrong place to mention the Celtics, Red Sox, and your upcoming opponent, the undefeated New England Patriots.

I believe that our days are jam-packed with things to be thankful for. And in the worst of days every believer here can be thankful that at some point they realized that they were a sinner and unworthy of heaven and confessed their sins to God and turned their life over to Him. By doing so they acquired the Holy Spirit as a companion and a wonderful eternal future.

I believe that we miss opportunities to be thankful because we fail to remember the unpleasant alternatives to the things that go smoothly for us each day.

For example, I can assume that most folks here had transportation that turned out to be reliable this evening. The alternative? My wife and I ran into it last Sunday morning. Our car was already partially packed for the trip that day to Connecticut (to see our daughter and her family) before coming to Pennsylvania.

I came outside on Sunday morning to find a flat tire. Never try to buy a new tire and get it put on on a Sunday. Thankfully, we also own a truck so we could transfer our luggage to it and be on our way.

I needed to be thankful that I had another means of transportation.

I needed to be thankful that the flat tire occurred in my driveway and not at the late-night basketball game we were at the night before some 35 minutes away or on the way home from the game.

I needed to be thankful that the flat tire didn’t occur on the busy highways we have to travel reaching Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

The material for thankfulness grows in abundance around us every day. May we have the eyes to see it, the ears to hear it, and mouths to speak of it every day.

Thanksgiving Presents Celebration Opportunities

It certainly is the time of great celebration in these parts over the successes of our major sports teams. Have we ever had a better collection of best-of-the-bunch teams to enjoy?

No doubt the happy faces seen in The Town Common (November 7, 2007) at the Red Sox Rolling Rally reflect the sentiments of most of us around here.

The reason I write this article is to alert the area sports faithful that truly tasty times are just ahead. I’m talking about Thanksgiving. No, I’m not talking about the food. I’m talking about the conversational opportunities.

Reflect on your own Thanksgiving-to-be gathering. I’m suspecting that among the collection of folks on hand will be some with non-area sports affiliations. Many of these people are just a word or two away from being riled up by the mere mention of the exploits of the Red Sox/Patriots/Celtics.

During Thanksgiving week, I will be visiting family members recently moved to Yankees/Mets/Giants/Jets territory in southwestern Connecticut. Later I’ll eat my Thanksgiving dinner in Phillies/Eagles/Flyers territory. I believe that Philadelphia/New York fans are the best of dry tinder. It doesn’t take much to light them up.

I got into a conversation at a sportscard show in Wilmington the first weekend of this month that proves my point. Simply by noting a card dealer’s Buffalo Bills loyalty and suggesting that there was still room for him to board the Patriots bandwagon I fired him up. Before long, he was red-faced and informing me that the Patriots were cheaters and Vince Wilfork was the dirtiest player in the NFL for injuring the Bills’ QB. Fortunately (for me), there was a table between us and I could move on before the fire spread.

At the same sportscard show, attended by hundreds, I saw just one Yankee hat. The wearer of that hat got the same looks and reactions that Hillary Clinton got the other night after giving her answer(s?) to permitting illegals in New York to get driver’s licenses.

In your gathering you may have people who aren’t serious fans. They’re the ones who are just as likely to be wearing Boston clothing next time around to make a fashion statement. Do not waste any incendiary material on them. They are usually the types who believe that the problem with sports is that the score is kept and participants get overly aggressive as a result.

You need to be aware that normally the sports hostilities between areas of the country do not stay red-hot. That’s because in this day of parity few teams can dominate a sport for very long. That puts a quick kibosh on the aggravation possibilities a fan from a successful team will have and results in lost opportunities at having fun with family from other parts of the country.

However, and I say this happily, I don’t see the Red Sox/Patriots/Celtics dropping back into also-rans any time soon. If so, then savoring the moments is in order and what better time to get the process started then among family at upcoming Thanksgiving. However, do be wary of family members from away with clinched hands holding sharp eating utensils.