By Andrew Hawes — Jr. Warden
November is a month that starts with Halloween, and ends with Thanksgiving. That’s always the way I’ve mentally thought of it. Carved Pumpkins to Pumpkin pies. Kids dressed up in costumes and roaming the streets… to kids dressed up as turkeys and pilgrims, performing skits in school. It’s a great month, in that “solidly Fall” period – not early enough to go skiing yet, but cold enough to wear warmer clothes when going out of the house, for sure. It’s the first month that’s wholly part of “The Holiday Season” – with broadcasting starting to set up their annual “repeat playlist” of fall favorites, leading inevitably into the December celebrations, and the end of another calendar year.
Traditionally, in our lodge, we celebrate Thanksgiving Dinner early in November, by having traditional Thanksgiving foods for our November Stated meeting, and this month is no exception. Thanks to the way voting went at Grand Lodge, we’ll be free to enjoy a glass of wine with our meal for those who see fit to do so!
In my family, we have a tradition when we sit down to eat Thanksgiving dinner: before we eat, we go around the table, and each of us talks about something that we are grateful for from the past year. Often, we are the most grateful that we are again gathered around a Thanksgiving feast with our family, able to enjoy each other’s company and partake in a life-long tradition that has been passed down through generations of my family, of spending the day together, enjoying each other’s company, and celebrating those things which we are thankful for- perhaps a bit redundant, but what are traditions for? It’s something that we should practice more often, we all know it, but that’s the one time each year, when we make SURE to do it.
This November, try to make sure you spend time thinking about your life, and the things in it you are thankful for – and share those things with the people in your life. Hopefully the people that you are feeling thankful for and sharing your life with are feeling the same way about you.