Oklahoma City family fun brings families together for the holidays.
Gratitude is a beautiful quality. This time of year, we're reminded to count our blessings and be thankful. The comfort of family, the concept of plenty and a full table at which to celebrate both is what I look forward to every autumn.
I remember a dish towel my mother had when I was small that consistently made an appearance each year along with the Thanksgiving linens. It featured a crocheted loop at the top, secured with a thick button, that wound around our oven handle, more for decoration than any practical purpose.
The stamped image, kitschy like most graphics in the early days of Clip Art, was a pastel rendering of a mother squirrel in a pink dress with puffed sleeves, a bonnet and white apron, surrounded by similarly tacky-cute drawings of baby squirrels tucked under her furry arms. She gazed down at them fixedly with what can only be described as pride and admiration in her chubby squirrel mother face. "Happy Thanksgiving" the towel's faded message declared in bold Old English font.
We pushed the dish towel aside to peer through the oven window at pies baking, cakes rising, turkeys browning. Its terry cloth took on a rough, threadbare texture over the years but there it was, year after year.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because the focus isn't on what we don't have or wish for or want. It's about family and what we already do have, not the least of which is their company for a day, for now, for a lifetime if we're lucky.
The consistency of celebrating with food, family, dish towels and all the comforts of home is easy to take for granted. There was a food pantry in my town but I never knew who frequented it or heard statistics about how many area children were going to bed hungry. 
As a journalist and a mom of three, that blissful ignorance is long gone and I am more grateful with each passing year for the basics. Safety, warmth, health and work to do are the items that top my list of what to be thankful for this year.
If you're looking for a way to celebrate the holiday with your family, click here for MetroFamily's list of holiday events leading up to Thanksgiving Day. Click here for ways to volunteer this holiday season and make it a little brighter for others.
It's a time to take stock: we've welcomed a new baby, sold a home, bought a house, kept everyone out of harm's way, knock on wood. The wood I'm knocking on is my own dining room table and its seats are almost all taken; I'm thankful. I believe I just may have become the mother squirrel.
Happy Thanksgiving!
