So. Here we go again. Thanksgiving, then the blur of the holiday season. I confess I like the holidays, mostly because I’ve figured out how to celebrate them in a way that works for me. Take, for instance, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. You won’t find me camped out at 3:00 a.m., ready to trample the crowds just to get a new gizmo on discount. But I do like to take the bus into downtown Seattle and soak up all the energy. All the lights, the red coffee cups (yeah, I know they’re out already), the crush of music and crowds, the star on the Macy’s building. I’m a sucker for it all. (And I know how to hold my wallet close!)

As for Thanksgiving, other than being a lot more sensitive about animal rights than I used to be, I plan to celebrate it the usual way. But there’s one thing about Thanksgiving that usually leaves me cold: the part where people go around the table and say what they’re thankful for. I just don’t get into that very much.

It’s not that I’m not thankful. I really am. It’s just that it feels so forced, and so unnatural, to stop for two minutes on the fourth Thursday in November and remember that you didn’t create all the good things in your life by yourself, that there are other people to thank, or God or the universe to thank, for the gifts and glories in your life. If I wasn’t in tune with that over the course of the past year, then a little table talk is not going to resonate very deeply with me.

Here’s a better way: on Thanksgiving, take time to reflect on the way your whole life has been open to the gifts and grace of others. You know there have been some bad moments, or bad days, when you were decidedly not thankful, not open. But surely there have been moments over the last year when you’ve been oriented outward. For example, you could reflect on how you’ve grown and changed in your relationship over the past year, and how the two of you have made so much progress in your lives together. Or you could reflect on how, when you suffered a big loss this year, not only did your family and friends rally around you, but you had something to offer them too. Or—just to take one more example—you could reflect on the gift of new life you’ve received, whether it’s a child, or a pet, or a new job, or (fill in the blank), and how, in response to that gift, you have opened yourself up to receive this gift with grace.

If you approach Thanksgiving this way, it’s a lot more satisfying then the traditional method of “Oh, right. How easily I forget. Thanks!” Instead, it’s a way for you to celebrate how you already have been living in a spirit of thankfulness. And it allows you to gracefully accept the thanks of others for the gifts you’ve given them over the past year.

On Thanksgiving, ask yourself this question: how have I lived a thankful life, with an open mind and open heart, over the past year?

And then dig into the stuffing.

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