Thanksgiving

The more I come to recognize my story's place in God's grander Story, my once-bewildered questions are turning to psalms of thanksgiving at the wonder that I have been included in what He is doing.

We all have somebody that sits down at the Thanksgiving table and says the most outrageous things, and you're doin' the dishes with your sister, and you're like, 'Omigod, can you believe she said that?'

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year because it reminds us to give thanks and to count our blessings. Suddenly, so many things become so little when we realize how blessed and lucky we are.

Always expect the unexpected. Right around Thanksgiving, when the new Alex Cross will be out. It's called Four Blind Mice and it's a pretty amazing story about several murders inside the military.

I've seen terrorism close up, but I don't live in a state of terror at all. I'm comfortable going to the Manhattan Thanksgiving Day Parade, the tree lighting at Rockefeller Center, Times Square on New Years Eve. For perspective, the world today is a safer place than it was during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Airlift, World War II.

On Thanksgiving Night, 1942, when I was fifteen years old, white racists burned our house to the ground.

Agriculture is a business that has been up to its bib overalls in politics since the first Thanksgiving dinner kickback to the Indians for subsidizing Pilgrim maize production with fish head fertilizer grants.

Something I didn't even know was on my bucket list has been achieved. I have cooked Thanksgiving dinner with Martha Stewart. I vow to follow the gospel of her teachings and do my very best in the remarkably less glamorous kitchen of my own home... without the luxury of magically appearing prep bowls filled by a staff of sous chefs.

You can't have a good Thanksgiving meal without a little bit of ketchup on the side.

My mum, Helen, was hilarious. She had a tremendous sense of humour and was a great singer and tap dancer. For many years, she was the voice of Minnie Mouse in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. She would be in the float as it came along, singing whatever the Minnie Mouse song of the day was. She was a really big spirit in my life.

Every Thanksgiving, we all write down three things we're thankful for and put them in a hat. Then we pass the hat around the dinner table and everyone has to guess who wrote what!

If no one shopped on Thanksgiving Day, the stores wouldn't open. End of story. I say we all take the pledge and stay home. Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks for what you have, not to save a few dollars to get more.

Thanksgiving is a season that is very much in accord with the themes and teachings of Jesus Christ.

If you think about a Thanksgiving dinner, it's really like making a large chicken.

On Thanksgiving I will stop to give thanks that my family is safe and healthy, especially because I realize that, following the tragedies of this year, it is all too real a possibility that they might not have been.

When people come to my act any time after Thanksgiving, I usually say, You shouldn't be here. You should be shopping. Our economy depends on you! You should be out there buying stuff.'

If you think Independence Day is America's defining holiday, think again. Thanksgiving deserves that title, hands-down.

Even though we're a week and a half away from Thanksgiving, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

That's one of the great things about Thanksgiving: Football's on!

It is now common knowledge that the average American gains 7 pounds between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.