Where's Thanksgiving?!

Thanksgiving is this weekend. We will be having Thanksgiving dinner at my in-laws on Sunday and as always I am sure it will be a delicious meal and some nice family time. Of course we should always be thankful for the many blessings in our life but it is good as well to be reminded and to take a day to just be thankful. The problem I am having is this...where is Thanksgiving?!

Every store I walk into right now has Halloween paraphernalia greeting me at the door and aisles of decorations (skeletons, skulls, blood, gore, witches, ghosts, gravestones etc). We were in the dollar store yesterday and they have a whole aisle full of things just for Halloween. And then of course there is all the candy and junk food. Everywhere you look right now there is Halloween. But there is no Thanksgiving. You have to search high and low to find anything that has to do with it. When did the hearts and minds of society change so much that Halloween is foremost in thought and action and money? Why are there not aisles full of decorations and such that remind us to be thankful and to fill our homes and hearts with blessings and family and to be blessings? Why is gore and evil and darkness so prevalent and it seems as though Thanksgiving is just an afterthought, another dinner to get through so the decorating for Halloween can begin? And then there is the whole candy overload and sick children thing that truly makes me shake my head.

I really don't like taking Emma into stores right now. In her innocence she stops and stares in wide eyed wonder at the bloody skulls and glowing eyes and hanging skeletons. No, I don't want to keep her in a bubble but there is so much in this world that at her age she doesn't understand or know how to filter. She is a sensitive little soul. We are very choosy in what we let her watch on tv or with her DVDVs as she calls them because she is easily scared and there are even some kid's ones that I have had to put aside until she is older. How it must affect her little heart and mind to walk into these stores and be assaulted with so much ickiness!

Anyways, just a blog of venting. I will be happy when Halloween is over again for the year and I will admit I will likely take advantage of sales to buy Emma some dress up clothes and buy Chad some candy. I won't, however, be decorating and we won't be handing out candy. We never have and instead have chosen to have a night out or something instead. We will see what happens this year.

For now I am going to be counting my blessings and making a mental list of the things for which I am thankful and I am going to enjoy our Thanksgiving dinner with family. I hope you are able to take time this year to be thankful for all that God has done for you. For your blessings, your family, your friends, your homes, your health, life, love, joy, turkey, mashed potoatoes and pumpkin pie! There is truly always, always something to be thankful for.