Thanks and giving - random thoughts

I am not American so I don't understand a lot of the stuff around Thanksgiving ... but ... if the American President can reprieve a couple of turkeys ... does this make us all Thanksgiving turkeys because we are still here?

Thanks and giving is what we should all do a lot more of, but certainly here is the UK a lot of people seem to be surprised, and not a bit suspicious, if you give them something.  Saying thank you is easier and is still a part of the culture though possibly only on a rather superficial lever, but giving seems to have been forgotten.  Western societies have become so dominated about me me me and the things that 'me' owns that we seems to have forgotten a sense of community and sharing. 
 
Giving however can be something really small, even just a smile is a gift because a gift does not need to have any monetary value.  Actually thinking about it maybe the best gifts don't have any cash value.  I sometimes get frustrated by colleagues who don't bother to think about giving others a helping hand, or if they have been given some help they simply don't consider giving any in return.  I'm alright Jack.  I hate it when you let another car out and the person behind you flashes their lights at you and makes jestures of throwing their hands up in frustration at having been held up for half a minute, or other gestures.  They would like to be let out, and if it is someone who wants to go across the traffic and go in the other direction they are not even going to be holding you up in the long run.
 
It was on the radio news this morning that people are going to take folks off their Christmas gift list to save money.  But what do they give anyway.  How many of you, like me, hates the 'gift set'.  Argggggh.  My neice's birthday is in mid November and it can acutally be quite difficult to find a present for her because shops have cleared their shelves for these pointless, total waste of money, giftsets in late August - or so it has seemed.
 
We need an Attitude of Gratitude and certainly living with cancer has given me a dose of that.  Bring grateful for every day that I am 'well' and living with incurable cancer is something to be grateful for.  That I can still work four days a week, that I can still drive my bright green car (known as Kermit the frog), that I can still do come things for myself and have not become a burden on others, that the sun is shining in a clear beautiful blue sky this morning.  If we really think the list could go on and on.