Silent Gratitude No More

I feel like the older I get, the faster time goes. It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is this week. I have a good friend from church who has been expressing her love of Thanksgiving, and it's caused me to stop and think about this often overlooked holiday.

It seems that every year stores put out Christmas items earlier and earlier. Thanksgiving has somehow become only an excuse to eat exorbitant amounts of food and gets really good deals on Christmas merchandise. Where has the gratitude theme gone?

We visited my family this weekend, and my mother was telling me about this quote she has at work. It's attributed to Gertrude Stein and says, "Silent gratitude isn't very much use to anyone." This quote was very poignant to me. So many times I feel grateful for someone, but it doesn't seem to make its way out of my mouth.

I have decided that I need to be much more verbal in my gratitude of others. I am going to practice and improve. Will there be times when I miss that moment of expressing thanks? Of course, but I'm hoping to minimize them. My gratitude will be silent no more.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!