The American Thanks Giving has come again this year and I have been trying to figure out what blog post would be the best. It’s a time of year where Homesteaders have harvested a(hopefully)good crop. It is when Homemakers invite their friends and family together to celebrate the holiday and all they are thankful for. While there is definite overlap in both groups it is hard to make a single blog post for both.
So instead of talking about how to set a table this year or how I learned to can my tomatoes I think I want to talk about giving thanks. Giving thanks is an absolute both groups can share as well as anyone else. After all we all have a lot to be thankful for.
I want to start with my childhood with my family sitting around the dinner table on Thanksgiving. Mom would read the weathered card that had our family’s iteration of the Five Kernels of corn. While I was not a corn fan as a child I still had to put the five little yellow pieces on my plate. My mom would remind me that I didn’t have to eat it but I should be thankful that it was able to be on my plate. If the crop had failed or it hadn’t been placed on the shelf at the store and if my family couldn’t afford corn then it wouldn’t have been there. It was a symbol. The corn was a reminder that it was only possible by the many people who worked this year. Whether they knew they had made my corn appear on my plate appear or not.
After the corn was distributed, we one by one shared what we were thankful for that year.
As I grew I became more aware of how lucky I was to be where I was. I wasn’t like the kids in the book The Little House on the Prairie. They walked through sun, rain and bitter cold to get to their school every day. I was picked up by a bus. We no longer relied on our own crop and preserving it to push us through winter until the spring crop yielded sustenance. We had a lot of grocery stores to pick from. I had warm clothes that were bought at a store. They weren’t my older siblings patched and mended worn out scraps. Thank you JCpenney.
Our world now is bigger and more connected than the first settler could had even imagined. The struggles that each person had for hundreds of years delt with gave birth to the luxury we have today. I did not grow up with an outhouse like my grandma. My toilet was down the hall from my bedroom.
So this year I will put my corn on my plate, and I will think about everything that went right this year. Thank you for the people who worked on irrigation and the people who made the parts for that. To the people who collected and distributed the kernels. And the workers who planted them. To the beasts that produced the fertilizer for the soil to feed the tall stalks. And the farmers who watched over the fields guiding the processes day by day. Thank you to everyone who helped harvest the ripe golden maze the day it was ready. Thank you truck drivers for your long sleepless hours. Only filled by the black path of asphalt to the next town. (And thankyou to those who made that road possible). Thank you to all the grocery store workers that unpacked the ears and placed them on our shelf and sold them to our family. And to my mom who cooked the golden round vegetable pieces that I used to hate. Thank you to all that made them appear on my plate.
The Good and the Bad
And while I could just focus on that corn it should serve as a reminder. To think back of everything that went right this year. To be thankful for all the effort everyone is constantly putting into their jobs, passions and life to make our very own life possible.
I am thankful for all of the negatives this year too. Thinking back to being upset about that corn sitting on my plate it made me realize that even when something has gone wrong or we didn’t like it there was a silver lining. That corn stuck with me and taught me that A.) I like corn and B.) Even though something is unpleasant and I don’t like it, good can come from it.
And even though I just shared a lot about myself I wanted to put the proverbial corn on my plate right now and say what I am thankful for this year.
I am thankful for change.
This year I had to move quickly out of a duplex that I thought I would have for another year. I lost my chickens, my garden, and changed countless other things. It felt like the end of the world for homesteading for me. I felt like my blog would be useless and that I would have nothing to talk about for the next year in an apartment.
But I am very thankful for this snowball.
I moved to another town away from the one that caused my boyfriend and I a lot of stress. We got into an apartment that is honestly great and is in an amazing area. Our neighbors are quiet and mind their own business which was a huge change. And even though I can’t traditionally homestead I was able to grow strawberries and herbs on my balcony. I also became more read on the topic of homesteading. And as you probably guessed my blog did not suffer. Instead, I have been able to spend more time on it. I was able to rebrand it for the homesteaders and homemakers both of which I am passionate about.
Why is Giving Thanks Important?
Giving thanks is important because it opens the door for us to become more understanding caring individuals. It acknowledges the efforts of other persons in our own life. Where if the other people didn’t do their work, our life would change. We should appreciate all of the good other people do year-round. This is especially important for when things change for the worse in our lives.
Being thankful allows us to overcome our obstacles with grace and learn from them. If you practice giving thanks and looking for the good during the good times, it will be so much easier to take the lessons and good from the hard times.
There is so much more that I could say like I am very thankful for (my family, my health, etc.) but I think it is time to pass the metaphorical microphone to you. What are you thankful for this year? You can leave a comment down below or better yet give thanks to the person who you’re thinking of. Thank you again for coming to my blog The Self Sufficient Citizen and spending time here. You can sign up for the monthly newsletter below where I’ll send you the best of the posts of the month. Until next week.
-Hannah
