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Thanksgiving is, I think, my favorite holiday. Not for the feasting. Not football games. Nothing to do with the must-start-buying-stuff frenzy that has nibbled around at its edges. It has much to do, of course, with being thankful. Which I am.  

I think, however, that what I most like about it is that it offers the chance to just stop for 30 seconds. Chill. Relax. No fireworks. No marching bands. No rushing to some event or service. Peace. Catch your breath. Say thank you and mean it.

Some of you reading this will rightly point out that preparing a full-out turkey and trimmings meal and cleaning up afterwards is about as relaxing as a jackhammer. I'm sympathetic. And given I will be the primary performer of such functions in our household this year, I stand behind all I said above. Perhaps its something zen in my innards that makes me think this way. Maybe it has something to do with reading A General Thanksgiving from the Book of Common Prayer before the meal, words of such resonance they power an entire year for me. Maybe I just like Autumn. Whatever the mechanics of it all, it is, as I said, my favorite holiday.

I searched the archives to find some nice Autumn painting to accompany this pondering. Either they'd been blogged about before or they didn't capture my mood writing this. So I break the rules to include a Spring scene: fields of trillium in the woods of Wintergreen. I think it is okay to do so because Thanksgiving is not about rules. 

I'm a bit early on this one. Thanksgiving is still four days away. Hope yours is wonderful.