COLUMN: Viewpoint – Thanksgiving

I was hired by The Carillon in 1986. That means this is the 40th Thanksgiving column I’m writing, so I thought it might be interesting to look back at some previous columns.

My very first Thanksgiving column was about the value of saying thank you to people who do everyday things big and small for us, whether that’s a family member, our restaurant server, health care professional, librarian or building caretaker. I talked about how words of thanks from my students’ parents in my early years of teaching boosted my confidence.

In 1987 I quoted the lyrics from a song by Canadian children’s musician Raffi that said all people really need is food in their belly, love in their family, and a song in their heart. While the luxuries of life might add extra comfort to our existence they aren’t really necessary. At Thanksgiving we need to be thankful for having the basics of life. Many in our world do not.

In 1990, I had just returned from living and working in Arizona for a year and in my column I commented on how differently Thanksgiving is celebrated in America. There were huge parades, elaborate meals, much travel, and Black Friday sales lured frenzied shoppers to the stores. American Thanksgiving was also very close to Christmas. We have more breathing room between the two holidays. I appreciated Canada’s more low-key observance of the holiday.

In 1998 I wrote about thank you cards. I was having my Grade 4 students make thank you cards, and so I took a pile of saved cards I had received in the past to school to serve as samples for my students. I was amazed at the variety of the cards I had received both in their aesthetic beauty and the messages they had inside. Sending thank you notes has perhaps become less in vogue in recent years but in my 1998 column I suggested it might be a tradition worth reviving.

In my 2002 Thanksgiving column I highlighted the things I’d been thankful for in the weeks leading up to the holiday. I was grateful to the town of Steinbach for installing new stop signs at a dangerous traffic corner. I was thankful for Steinbach resident, Ruth Oommen who had invested countless hours to organize and promote the Eastman Youth Choir that provided a first-class musical experience for my 16-year-old son. I was thankful for a student named Ashton who told me he was sure I was his kindred spirit. I was reading my class the novel Anne of Green Gables and Anne called her friends kindred spirits. Ashton’s comment warmed my heart.

In 2007 I was living in Hong Kong and I wrote about their Thanksgiving celebration called the Mid-Autumn Festival. On the night the moon is at its fullest everyone carries lanterns and goes down to the ocean to have a picnic.

I wrote my 2021 column during COVID and I listed things I was thankful for during that difficult and challenging time. I was grateful to our province and its politicians for allocating generous funds to enable as many people as possible to be vaccinated, despite receiving push back from those who didn’t support vaccine mandates. I was grateful to health care workers who remained dedicated to helping COVID victims as well as all their other patients to the best of their ability.

This 2026 Thanksgiving I am thankful to The Carillon for giving me the opportunity to write for its pages over the last four decades. I don’t take that privilege at all for granted and I am truly grateful.