You may have heard of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. There's another day you might want to know about: Giving Tuesday. The idea is pretty straightforward. On the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, shoppers take a break from their gift-buying and donate what they can to charity.

The observance of Thanksgiving Day-as a function-has become general of late years. The Thankfulness is not so general. This is natural. Two-thirds of the nation have always had hard luck and a hard time during the year, and this has a calming effect upon their enthusiasm.

As soon as someone tells me: 'You're rather sexy,' I wish I could disappear. If somebody says: 'You were voted the world's sexiest man,' I have no idea what that means. How do I respond? 'Thank you' is the best you can do. George Clooney is the world's sexiest man, anyway.

Gratitude is our most direct line to God and the angels. If we take the time, no matter how crazy and troubled we feel, we can find something to be thankful for. The more we seek gratitude, the more reason the angels will give us for gratitude and joy to exist in our lives.

There is one day that is ours. There is one day when all we Americans who are not self-made go back to the old home to eat saleratus biscuits and marvel how much nearer to the porch the old pump looks than it used to. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.

Make it a habit to tell people thank you. To express your appreciation, sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you, and you'll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life, and you'll find that you have more of it.

I keep saying this - and I keep putting it off because I get busy - but I keep saying one year I'm gonna tape our Thanksgiving dinner or, like, our Christmas dinner and maybe put it on my website just for people to see how funny it really is, how much fun it really, really is.

Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving," and the words of John Fitzgerald Kennedy tell us that, "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

When I was a kid in Indiana, we thought it would be fun to get a turkey a year ahead of time and feed it and so on for the following Thanksgiving. But by the time Thanksgiving came around, we sort of thought of the turkey as a pet, so we ate the dog. Only kidding. It was the cat!

I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains....My advice is: Go outside, to the fields, enjoy nature and the sunshine, go out and try to recapture happiness in yourself and in God. Think of all the beauty that's still left in and around you and be happy!

A week before Thanksgiving, my mother bought the turkey, frozen. Then she froze it some more. Then she let it thaw and cleaned it - and I mean really cleaned it, because nobody wanted a 'dirty bird.' She salt-and-peppered the turkey, buttered, paprika-ed, and nominally stuffed it.

On the morning of Thanksgiving, I would wake up to the home smelling of all good things, wafting upstairs to my room. I would set the table with the fancy silverware and china and hope that my parents and grandmother wouldn't have the annual Thanksgiving fight about Richard Nixon.

It must be an odd feeling to be thankful to nobody in particular. Christians in public institutions often see this odd thing happening on Thanksgiving Day. Everyone in the institution seems to be thankful 'in general.' It's very strange. It's a little like being married in general.

Every year, I hear about Thanksgiving. Who do one give thanks to? ... And who is giving thanks? What are they giving thanks for? For lots of poverty that's on the earth and lots of war that is a-rumoring all over the earth? For lots of people who die daily and the crime that multiply?

It's part of the American experience: We deal with mosquitoes in August, airport delays around Thanksgiving, expensive health care and the potential of being shot, at any time, by a semiautomatic weapon as we try to go about the most boring, precious, asinine aspects of our daily lives.

Well, a lot of people don't know this about me, but I'm actually shy around people I don't know. I would just say with my first concert, my first tour, I didn't really talk onstage. I was like, "Thank you, I love you guys," or whatever. But now I've just kind of learned to work a crowd.

We're getting ready to sit down at the table and have Thanksgiving, and there's people that are not with their families. There are people that are in dangerous areas, putting their lives on the line to keep our country free, and I think that's something we should all celebrate every day.

I was 23 when I learned how to cook; I grew up around the same time. It was precisely then that Thanksgiving started to mean something more. Growing up, Christmas was always about me, and eventually you, when I finally started to enjoy the giving part. But Thanksgiving is always about us.

Some people are absolutely funny and you want to wish them Happy Thanksgiving in funniest way possible. Here is the list of Funny Thanksgiving sayings. Just chose the quote you want to wish that person. Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread and pumpkin pie.

In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.

For three things I thank God every day of my life: thanks that he has vouchsafed me knowledge of his works; deep thanks that he has set in my darkness the lamp of faith; deep, deepest thanks that I have another life to look forward to--a life joyous with light and flowers and heavenly song.

The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust — not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God.

I've been giving back since I was a teen, handing out turkeys at Thanksgiving and handing out toys at toys drives for Christmas. It's very important to give back as a youth. It's as simple as helping an old lady across the street or giving up your seat on the bus for someone who is pregnant.

Let's say you go to a friend's wedding, or Thanksgiving, or Halloween. It'd be great the next day to see what went on with your friends' Thanksgiving weekend, or all the costumes they wore on Halloween, and be able to look back and see what they wore the year before, and the year before that.

I've spent a lot of Thanksgivings on the road with my band, so anytime that I can spend Thanksgiving with my family in a traditional aspect, eating sweet potatoes and cranberries and stuffing and all the trappings of Thanksgiving and then get on a treadmill the next day extra long, I'm happy.

My most memorable meal is every Thanksgiving. I love the food: the turkey and stuffing; the sweet potatoes and rice, which come from my mother's Southern heritage; the mashed potatoes, which come from my wife's Midwestern roots; the Campbell's green-bean casserole; and of course, pumpkin pie.

In preparing for my recording audition, my mom told me to YouTube the old 'Peanuts' Thanksgiving and Christmas specials to hear how Charlie Brown speaks. So I listened to as much as I could find online to get the voice right. Winning the role took a lot of hard work, but good fortune as well.

Most people think to make green bean casserole around Thanksgiving and Christmas, but honestly, I make this dish more during the summer, when green beans can be found fresh at the market. I think it is the perfect meal when served with crusty bread, a bountiful salad, and a cup or two of wine.

It is therefore recommended... to set apart Thursday the eighteenth day of December next, for solemn thanksgiving and praise, that with one heart and one voice the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts and consecrate themselves to the service of their divine benefactor.

You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

How wonderful it would be if we could help our children and grandchildren to learn thanksgiving at an early age. Thanksgiving opens the doors. It changes a child's personality. A child is resentful, negative, or thankful. Thankful children want to give, they radiate happiness, they draw people.

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Thanksgiving is a time for families and friends to gather together and express gratitude for all that we have been given, the freedoms we enjoy, and the loved ones who enrich our lives. We recognize that all of these blessings, and life itself, come not from the hand of man but from Almighty God.

God smiles when we praise and thank Him continually. Few things feel better than receiving heartfelt praise and appreciation from someone else. God loves it, too. An amazing thing happens when we offer praise and thanksgiving to God. When we give God enjoyment, our own hearts are filled with joy.

I think that is a better thing than thanksgiving: thanks-living. How is this to be done? By a general cheerfulness of manner, by an obedience to the command of Him by whose mercy we live, by a perpetual, constant delighting of ourselves in the Lord, and by a submission of our desires to His will.

My birthday is always around Thanksgiving, and I always had to have turkey on my birthday. My mom was always, 'Let's celebrate your birthday on Thanksgiving.' My other siblings got to have special dinners they liked. I resented turkey. For a long time, I hated turkey. I've kind of gotten over it.

My tradition, as an adult, is to have an open-door policy on Thanksgiving. I always host, and I welcome absolutely anyone into my home. I think it's really special. If people are going through hard times or not getting along well with their family, they flock to my house. And I'll have my tree up!

Lets talk about the holidays, more specifically, consumption during the holidays. If it's true that 'We are what we eat,' most of us would be unrecognizable during the period that ranges from the night before Thanksgiving through that day in early January when everyone decides to return to the gym.

We celebrate Thanksgiving along with the rest of America, maybe in different ways and for different reasons. Despite everything that's happened to us since we fed the Pilgrims, we still have our language, our culture, our distinct social system. Even in a nuclear age, we still have a tribal people.

Let's be grateful for what we have. Let's be mindful of those who have less. Let's appreciate those who hold a special place in our lives, and make sure they know it. And let's think about those who can't spend the holiday with their loved ones - especially the members of our military serving overseas.

At Thanksgiving, my mom always makes too much food, especially one item, like 700 or 800 pounds of sweet potatoes. She's got to push it during the meal. "Did you get some sweet potatoes? There's sweet potatoes. They're hot. There's more in the oven, some more in the garage. The rest are at the Johnson's."

I'm blessed to come from a family with five brothers. We're all physical and athletic and like to work out, like to be outside, like to throw the ball around. We spent our entire childhoods on some kind of corner or in a field. We still do a Turkey Bowl every Thanksgiving. It gets competitive, man. Bloody.

One of the best parts of Thanksgiving for me is re-watching some of the classic holiday blunders that have been depicted on television. I remember laughing uncontrollably on the set of 'That Girl' back in 1967 when we shot the episode, 'Thanksgiving Comes But Once A Year, Hopefully' during our second season.

The whole of the life -- even the hard -- is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole. These are new language lessons, and I live them out. There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.

When we are filming, it often feels like we're flying blind. As an actor, you have no idea if your choices are right or if they work. Some scenes feel like a complete Hail Mary. Imagine you're blindfolded and cook a massive Thanksgiving feast with only new recipes - without getting to taste any of them along the way.

When I was about nine years old, I announced to my mother that I was going to cook Thanksgiving dinner. And I went to the library and got this whole pile of books. I'd love to say it all turned out great. It didn't. But, sort of, from that point on, whenever there was serious cooking at home, I was the one who did it.

After church on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, my family would go chop down our Christmas tree. Once it was home and placed in its stand, Mom and I would painstakingly decorate our tree. It took hours to place the tinsel, string the lights, find the perfect spot for my favorite macaroni and felt ornaments from kindergarten.

Sometimes we may ask God for success, and He gives us physical and mental stamina. We might plead for prosperity, and we receive enlarged perspective and increased patience, or we petition for growth and are blessed with the gift of grace. He may bestow upon us conviction and confidence as we strive to achieve worthy goals.

I have strong doubts that the first Thanksgiving even remotely resembled the 'history' I was told in second grade. But considering that (when it comes to holidays) mainstream America's traditions tend to be over-eating, shopping, or getting drunk, I suppose it's a miracle that the concept of giving thanks even surfaces at all.

For, after all, put it as we may to ourselves, we are all of us from birth to death guests at a table which we did not spread. The sun, the earth, love, friends, our very breath are parts of the banquet.... Shall we think of the day as a chance to come nearer to our Host, and to find out something of Him who has fed us so long?

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