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Thanksgiving Day is a time of food, fun, and family gathered around the table and, later, a fire you have started in the fireplace. Thanksgiving Day is also traditionally a time of  thankfulness for the things we have. But not everything we are grateful for is something we have. Sometimes we are most thankful that
some things we no longer have.
Most of us are thankful for our family and friends, for abstractions such as love and peace, for
kindnesses of others, for opportunities we have, and even for consumer products we own. Having an annual day of Thanksgiving where we "count our blessings" makes us both grateful and humble.
Can we be thankful for things we no longer have? Sure! Aren't you glad
you no longer have that extra 10 pounds, that addiction to tobacco, or that bad habit you worked so hard to break? Some can be grateful for a
disease in remission or cured, a troubling time in their lives behind them, a bitter resentment abated, or a credit card debt or mortgage paid off.
We can even be surprisingly grateful when some of life's smaller nuisances
are a thing of the past. Maybe the cluttered closets, the weedy flower beds, the piles of photographs waiting for albums, the mold in the basement, or
the sleepless nights of new parenting are history! Perhaps your puppy is finally housebroken, your daughter is no longer dating That Guy, and your son no longer borrows your car.
Is there anything in your professional work life you are glad is gone? You
might be thankful that you no longer have to go for job interviews, that you will never again have to work for that jerk of a boss, that your Client from
Hell has been placated, or that you have learned to coexist with a difficult coworker.
Even children have things in their lives that they are delight are over: an
angry relationship now settled into a friendship, a difficult school topic such as fractions or penmanship mastered, an anxiety producing test now behind them.
There is an important difference between the things we are thankful for
having and those we are thanking for no longer having. Many of the former we have because of luck and grace, not effort on our part. But the
unpleasant things and situations in life rarely just go away on their own; we usually have to work…and often have to work very hard…to lose those
extra pounds, pay off those debts, kill the basement mold, or let a resentment go.
On Thanksgiving Day, Americans traditionally celebrate their bounty by
consuming a special feast and giving thanks for all the blessings they have.
But this Thanksgiving Day, create a new tradition of thankfulness in your
home. Give each Thanksgiving dinner guest a small piece of paper such as an index card and a pencil or pen. Ask them to write down one thing they
are delighted they no longer have. You might give them your own example or ones from this article to get the ball rolling.
After dinner, as all gather around a welcoming fire in the fireplace,
encourage your family and guests to take turns tossing their cards into the fireplace.  Some will want to savor what they no longer have by reading their cards aloud before disposing of them in the fire,
but no one has to read aloud before saying a final, joyous farewell to something they are delighted is no longer in their lives!
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