All my life, Thanksgiving has been one of my very favorite holidays.  When I was a kid, I'd wait all morning for my parents to finish watching the Rose Parade on television, so we could pack up our contributions and schlep down to the Big House where some 200 odd other family members would congregate, gossip about Cape Cod goings on, and leave the kids to get into trouble.

Generally, this was the one time every year when I did things I wasn't supposed to do, although what was for me a night of wild abandon was a stuffy, rigid affair for my cousins.  For those not in the know, the Big House is an old, copper roofed manse on a bluff overlooking Pleasant Bay, on the "arm" of Massachusetts - a sinkhole in time called Cape Cod.  Once the many rooms of the Big House were explored and it was confirmed that the dust bunnies hadn't moved from the year previous, we'd start exploring the attics, secret doors, and prohibitition-era liquor stashes of our ancestors.  Drinking from those bottles was one of the things I drew the line at, and my snotty insistence on decorum has probably earned my Aunt and Uncle some decent cash on E bay, in the end.

Later in life, Thanksgiving became a time to connect and understand my dear friends more deeply.  When I was at UMASS and my folks moved out to Arizona, I spent a few Thanksgivings with the family of my Andover friend Ian Stephenson, swapping space program stories with his grampa, who knew Alan Shepard - and catching up with his dad, who has always been a delightful font of arcane knowledge and commentary.

Since moving to California, Thanksgiving has usually been shared with my most beloved actors and carnies.  Music is played, stories are told...  Eventually, the crowd settles in to watch reruns of the Muppet Show, and perhaps a Kurosawa film.  This affair is hosted by Aaron Lyons, a noble man with more life and stories inside him than his short thirty-odd years of life would suggest possible.

At dinner this year, I expect to reflect on my gratitude for the stories that have come into my life, (it's been a banner year for screenwriting,) for the amazing, loving artists and collaborators that have come into my life or stayed in it since coming to California, and for the support and help of my friends (who are also my colleagues) in managing and healing a crippling leg injury far beyond medical expectations.  Of course, I'm also very grateful for the help I've received from the State of California and all the surgeons and nurses that made medical treatment possible.

Lastly, this has been a year where the things I hope yet to achieve or manifest have begun glimmering in the near distance.  For every unrealized hope, there is now at least one sign that my heart is rightly directed.  For that, I am especially grateful.

To all, thank you for making this world what it is.  To all, thank you for working towards what can be.