What Was I Thankful For?

I posted a journal a week or two back regarding my Thanksgiving experience. I talked about the part where everyone stood around in a circle and articulated their reasons for being thankful. One young woman really wanted to start a prayer circle, but with the rest of the group, that idea went over like a lead balloon. The consensus vote showed there were many who were less than interested in an actual prayer than standing in a circle to say what we were thankful for. This was an acceptable compromise. There was a bottle of vodka that was introduced and as everyone told the group what they were thankful for, a shot was taken. The bottle and shotglass then passed to the left like the proverbial conch shell. Until everyone had a turn to speak the rest of us stood patiently listening to the things that others consider to be priorities in their lives. Some were meant to be funny, some moving, some were heartfelt and personal while others were generalizations. And as I mentioned in the post I sounded like some were thankful for little more than the free shot of vodka. As the turns went around the circle I knew I had to say something, but hadn’t even thought about it until just that moment. What would say? I really didn’t want to take the cheesy way out and tell the group that I didn’t have anything to offer. But as others spoke I had a fleeting thought of what my family’s Thanksgiving traditions are. And it seems as I get older and my family continues to expand and spread out, I am not sure that I can think of what "traditions" we have at all anymore. I mean there must be some, but as time goes by I think that every year’s holiday experiences are different from the last and I start to think that anything that was traditional by my definition and standard, are not able to hold up as such, and as my turn came up, I took a moment to explain just that. My family may have had traditions in the past, but not so much these days. For the past few minutes I had been listening to what my new friends are thankful for and I decided that I was most thankful to be standing in a modified prayer circle discussing what I was thankful for. I am considering this a new experience and new experiences are what I am thankful for. And with that, I took my shot and passed the vodka bottle to the left.