Being Thankful

I have a couple of posts in the works, including my December Themes one, but until I get them done, here's another quote from Laura. ("Thanksgiving Time" from Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Family Collection.)
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Father had laid in a supply of provisions for the winter and among them were salt meats, but for fresh meat we depended on father's gun and the antelope which fed, in herds, across the prairie. So we were quite excited, one day near Thanksgiving, when Father hurried into the house for his gun and then away to try for a shot at a belated flock of wild geese hurrying south.

We would have roast goose for Thanksgiving dinner! "Roast goose and dressing seasoned with sage," said sister Mary. "No, not sage! I don't like sage and we won't have it in the dressing," I exclaimed. Then we quarreled, until Father returned, - without the goose! To this day, when I think of it I feel again just as I felt then and realize how thankful I would have been for roast goose.

This little happening has helped me be properly thankful even tho at times the seasoning of my blessings has not been such as I would have chosen. (Amen to that, Laura!)

"I suppose I should be thankful for what we have, but I can't feel very thankful when I have to pay $2.60 for a little flour and the price still going up," writes a friend, and in the same letter she says, "we are in our usual health." The family are so used to good health that it is not even taken into consideration as a cause for thanksgiving. We are so inclined to take for granted the blessings we posses and to look for something peculiar; some special good luck for which to be thankful. We are nearly all afflicted with mental farsightedness and so easily overlook the thing which is obvious and near.
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Super, like many young children, has a tendency to list in his prayers many obvious things that he is thankful for (the sky, the dog, our house, his fire trucks) and I think that young children, as usual, are more in tune with the true meaning of things.