After the turkey becomes sandwiches and the dust from shopping settles, we bask in the glow of Thanksgiving.

For some, that means cleaning up the mess from the rotating door of relatives and friends. For others, that means the time-honored tradition of fighting to untangle the Christmas lights only to find half of them are out. For yet others, it means the harsh reality of heading back to work after a blissful four days off.

For those that travelled for Thanksgiving, you might be thankful to get safely home.

The last word in that sentence really is the key, isn’t it?

Though historically the celebration of a bountiful harvest, which, for a country and a county so strongly rooted in agriculture, is a very important celebration. Over time, the meaning of harvest has changed so that our giving of thanks is not just for the harvest of crops but for life’s rich harvest. President George Washington proclaimed the first nationwide thanksgiving celebration in 1789 “as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God.”

So while Thanksgiving may have turned into “Thankshopping” on the national marketing scene, it is still strongly rooted in its giving of thanks for the many blessings of our home.

As we head into the holiday season, we can be thankful for the many seasonal celebrations we have in our community; our home. There are chorale concerts, ballet performances of The Nutcracker, screenings of your favorite holiday movies on the Square, community bands performing seasonal classics, a festival of trees, and a magical light display. If your December calendar is not full yet, it can be.

As we reflect on the past year, we can be thankful to live in a country, a state and a county that values the principles this nation was founded on. So many of our local men and women have served proudly to protect those freedoms and we thank them every chance we get. Our local elected officials work each and every day to provide services to us, services we have come to expect as citizens. Right or wrong, we live in a country that allows citizens to participate, at the level they choose, in the democratic process.

As we struggle with the current (or past) hardships of our circumstances, we can be thankful for our neighbors. Our churches and our community programs offer great assistance throughout the community. You need not look far — for housing, for food, for support. Even as our community grows, we are still have a small-town feel and that small town is full of good Samaritans (as recent events have shown) and people willing and able to help one another.

We at The Covington News are thankful to be your local community newspaper. We have called Covington home for 150 years and continue to serve you with local news and information. We feel the struggles, triumphs, hardships, and joy of you, our neighbors. We are the first recorders of the history of this community, our home.

We can be thankful … for everything.