In Focus

Find Something To Be Thankful For

It's Thanksgiving weekend, the weekend that we traditionally gather with family, eat too much and give thanks. As a Chicklette, mine were spent around Nana's dining room table. There were tons of us. Thinking of the chaos in my grandmother's small house makes me smile. We slid down her stairs, we played hide and seek in her closet, and we played "office" on my grandfather's typewriter. We were literally climbing onto her freezer and jumping off while we waited for dinner to be served. Then we would sit down, the adults in the dining room and those under sixteen at the "kids" table in the kitchen. My Bapa would then read a bible story and each of us would have to cite something we were thankful for. I was usually thankful for my Mom and Dad and all my cousins. It was easy, it was what everyone else said, and I don't think it would have gone over big if I said that I was really thankful for having the cutest boyfriend in the whole school.

Now that I'm an adult, I'm trying to carry on those traditions with my children. I've just had a couple of hurdles to overcome in my quest of carrying on the torch. 1) I've never been near family, and 2) Thanksgiving isn't always celebrated in November where I'm living. Hmmmm. those look more like roadblocks. This Thanksgiving won't be any different. Living in Canada, the kids will be in school and my husband will be at work.

Do you ever get to that point in your life where it seems like there is absolutely nothing to be thankful for? The whole country is out there having a blast, celebrating family traditions and there you sit, far away from home. You just want to go back to bed and pull up the covers. It reminds me of a bear year in the stock market. (Oh, c'mon. You knew I'd tie in something investment related.)

The market has been sucky. (Can I say that? Not a pleasant word, but it describes how I feel about it.) We can find many reasons for the stall in stocks, but it doesn't make it any better. We can blame the uncertainty in the presidential election, we can blame the dot-coms for their unsavory business plans, or we can blame Canada for celebrating Thanksgiving on a Monday in October. None of it is going to help.

But wait; there is light at the end of the cornucopia. As Chicks we know there are going to be bear years, and every year will not be profitable. These things are expected. We just wait them through, look for bargains, and continue to invest. We know that consistently the stock market has outperformed any other investment avenue available. If we succumb to the stock market blues and leave our money in a savings account, we are missing an opportunity for some greater gains in the long run. We cannot dwell in our suckiness. We have to get out from underneath that bear blanket and celebrate A Sale!! A Thanksgiving Day Sale like no other. Find some companies that you have been thinking about buying and run them through the Chicks Dozen. How do they fare? Spend the weekend going through your investment portfolio. Are there any currently at bargain basement prices that you would like to add to? Don't let a bear year sour you to the whole stock market tradition.

Back to the woe is me. I have to ride yet another Thanksgiving through. No cousins, no parents, and no holiday. But I'm not going to let this one bring me down. I'm going to pull my kids out of school early, get a fire going, and have our own Thanksgiving. We're going to invite all of our American friends over for dinner. I'm going to let their kids run all over my house, climb my walls, and play "office" on my computer. Then, when it comes time to eat, I'm going to tell everyone how thankful I am that they are there with me, that I have four beautiful children, and that I married the cutest boy from high school. (Then I'm going to go check out some stocks on sale.)