Gorging on thanks

Is it possible to overdue the thanks bit of Thanksgiving? -- to get a bit cynical and scrooge-y (to borrow from the holiday on deck) about all the "I'm thankful for..."? Dear Abby runs her annual prayer, comic strips go sober, and the local news features some feel-good story of triumph thanks to X (family, friends, pets) over Y (tragedy, trial, loss). It's all so... nice. And yet, and yet. We just can't help it. We're built for gratitude, it seems, well-placed or not. Thanks-giving takes us out of ourselves, if only for a minute, to recognize a personal benefit that we enjoy but had nothing to do with. By someone or something, by some peculiar grace, I am enriched. So the illogic goes. Each one of us knows that wonder and, aware of it, is grateful. But hey, for some of us, the thanks can get a bit cloying this time of year. Then, I welcome the corrective reality of winter, close on its heels -- severe, hard, dark, and cold. A reckoning season. And this native northern Minnesotan is, well, grateful for that, too.