Seven things to do for Thanksgiving and Black Friday: 7QT VIII, seriatim.

am post­ing my Sev­en Quick Takes arti­cle (a short one) ear­ly this week so that I can spend Thanks­giv­ing dri­ving to Penn­syl­va­nia to see my par­ents and can spend the week­end enjoy­ing their com­pa­ny. (And read­ing Evan­gelii Gaudi­um so that I can resume the blog prompt­ly when I return!). Here are sev­en oth­er things I am going to do, which I rec­om­mend and pass on.

STAY HOME

There will be plen­ty of time for Christ­mas shop­ping. Do not get swept up into the mate­r­i­al mad­ness that says you must knock every­one else down to get to the stores on Fri­day. It is a vir­tu­ous dis­ci­pline, and guards against con­sumerism, if you for­get for a day that a world of acquir­ing things exists out­side your four walls.

EAT LEFTOVERS

One of the great joys of Thanks­giv­ing for me is that my mom will divide the left­over stuff­ing into sep­a­rate con­tain­ers so that my dad and I won’t wor­ry that some­one end­ed up with more of it. Thanks­giv­ing is a feast; the point is to get bloat­ed and expan­sive with tryp­to­phan and wine. And then you will be too lethar­gic to go shop­ping on Black Fri­day, any­way.

PRAY

Here’s a pow­er­ful med­i­ta­tion, if it has not struck you: “prays” and “praise” sound exact­ly the same. Praise is supe­ri­or to any oth­er prayer. If you have favorite psalms, pray them (slow­ly) over Thanks­giv­ing. If you don’t have favorite psalms, search around for them. Psalm 27 has always been a favorite of mine.

WATCH “PLANES, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES”

It is a com­fort to me to know that the same movie is wait­ing for me at the same time every year. And this one is a fun­ny and touch­ing sto­ry about the long­ing to be home.

REMIND YOURSELF WHAT THANKSGIVING IS ABOUT

It is about peo­ple who left their home and gave up every­thing and endured hard­ship upon hard­ship for the free­dom to wor­ship God after their own con­science. And God sus­tained them, and they knew that it was right to take a day to stop their work and their pur­suit of things (don’t go shop­ping on Black Fri­day) and praise Him.

STOP

It is eas­i­er now than it has ever been, with our mobile devices, to take our work and our tech­no­log­i­cal dis­trac­tions with us wher­ev­er we go. The more we con­nect remote­ly, the more we are dis­con­nect­ed local­ly. Resist that. Be with those sit­ting next to you. Look at them, not your device.

MAKE A DIFFERENT LIST

Not a Christ­mas shop­ping list, but a list of what you are thank­ful for. Every Thanks­giv­ing it has been a rit­u­al in my fam­i­ly not to say a tra­di­tion­al prayer before the meal, but instead to have every­one at the table name one thing they are thank­ful for. There is far too much com­plain­ing. We live in chal­leng­ing eco­nom­ic times, but for all of that we are the wealth­i­est and luck­i­est peo­ple in the his­to­ry of the world. What­ev­er chal­lenges we have faced, we have come around to the end of anoth­er year. God has sus­tained us, for He is the cre­ator and the sus­tain­er of all things. Keep in mind how He has sus­tained you.