While the origins of our modern Thanksgiving Day are more a matter of many traditions eventually running into a single idea than the straight line from familiar paintings of the Plymouth Colony’s observance more than 400 years ago to our holiday tables today, there is a common theme: gratitude.

Thanksgiving is a day on which we celebrate with friends and family (for which, presumably, we are grateful) with an abundance of food, parades, football and other traditions that also help us remember how richly blessed many of us are, here.

It is a day on which many can be grateful there are family members skilled enough to replicate generations-old recipes so perfectly that those favorite dishes give us reason to be thankful for relatives we’ve never met — and a reason to say their name … bring a little of their presence home for the holiday, even if they are no longer occupying a seat.

It is also a day on which we can start planning the many opportunities we will have to GIVE this season, because we are so thankful for what we have and our ability to help those who have less.

It is a day during which, perhaps only for a moment, we should pause to be thankful we live in a country founded so we could be free to think, speak, disagree, worship (or not), assemble and petition without the government prohibiting or abridging any of those rights.

Certainly, it is a day some will spend planning their upcoming holiday shopping, and we must be thankful we live in this land of plenty that makes that possible, too.

Remember those for whom the day is smaller, quieter … maybe nothing special at all. Perhaps be the reason they have something for which to be thankful this season.

Whether it be a day of joyous (and delicious) excess or a simple whispered “thank you” before a humble meal, do not neglect this day to celebrate how much we have for which to be grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

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“Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer.”

— Maya Angelou

“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.”

— Henry David Thoreau