The past weekend was a recent high-water mark in terms of small moments that made me thankful. Let me just tap this stake in right here and tie some rope to it, so I can pull myself back up some other time when I might need it.

I thought of writing about the details of encounters with my family and friends that put me in that state, then reconsidered that it might come across as pollyannish. That waffling process made me consider how often we don't communicate this kind of grateful feeling. Witty cynicism is more acceptable (and admittedly funnier).

Lori Patel writes well about a similar thing today in Media Unspun:

Have you noticed how often good news is portrayed as no news at all? Yet tales of dread and disaster announce themselves in bold type. When the docks were closed, reporters filled screens and newspapers with anguished accounts of all the people getting hurt, from every type of retailer and consumer to truckers and kids at Christmas. Now that there's solid reason to believe that further shutdowns can be avoided, the news is scantly covered. When was it decided that anxiety deserves feeding more than hope?

Is belief in a concrete diety necessary to have this state of thankfulness? I don't know. Is "happy turkey day" just a cutesyism that stuck, or an attempt at political correctness?