Turkey Day

I can't seem to get Thanksgiving out of my head.  It's fast approaching and I am refusing to commemorate this year.  The more pressure I get from those who mean well, the more I want to run away from a day set aside to be thankful.  I'm told that if I don't celebrate, my two children that are with me will feel unloved and that I still have so much to be thankful for.  While I understand those two arguments and agree with the latter, here are my thoughts:

"IT'S JUST A DAY!"

If I were to believe that this was the only day that my gratitude was expected or appreciated by God then I could accept the argument.  However, I feel very differently.  I am thankful everyday to live in this nation of freedom which was founded by and through God's direction.  I am thankful everyday to have a husband who loves me and provides a great life for me.  I am thankful everyday that I have the luxuries of a home and an abundance of material things that are unknown to many around the world.  I am thankful that God still talks to men on earth and allows those men to act in his name on my behalf.  And  yes, I am very thankful for my children--all three of them and it is bittersweet to be thankful for them right now, so what.
I think Thanksgiving is like Christmas and Easter.  Those are days--special days, but we aren't supposed to just remember that a Savior was born one day a year and we aren't only to repent for our sins on the one day commemorating that Savior's atonement for us.  Just as we aren't only to feel God's love and blessings for us on a particular day while eating a big turkey. 
Almost every year our family has made a "thankful book" and we've all drawn and written down things that we are thankful for.  Silly as it may sounds, the one that sticks in my mind is when we drew "big boy underwear" for Ian.  He would be embarrassed by that, but it's such a good memory.  One year we included the extended family in the book-making and we had a page for each letter of the alphabet.  My teenage nephews wrote some very colorful things that we left out of the aloud reading.  This is a good tradition and I will find a way to continue it this year in some form or fashion--at least I think I will.
The scriptures mention thanksgiving with relation to sacrifice, prayer, and even mourning.  They also say we should live in thanksgiving daily.  This year I choose that over the expense and hassles of  "the day."
How must Heavenly Father feel when we set aside only one day a year to focus on gratitude?   And we spend it eating.  I can only guess that he's disappointed.  Maybe that's my convenient rationalization for this difficult year.  Maybe that's my way of shutting up those who think they know what I should do.  Probably.