Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  In addition to being a day of gathering friends and family around a festive table, Thanksgiving is a day the entire country comes together in gratitude for how fortunate we are to be Americans.

There is a tradition in my family that I would like to uphold.  Before we commence with our Thanksgiving feast, we go around the table and say aloud what each of us is thankful for.  Some years we are distracted from this tradition by hunger and excitement, but I always take the time on Thanksgiving Day to think about what I have been most thankful for in the past year.  Every year my thoughts first turn to my health and that of my family, but this year, after moving myself and Elephant Heart to a new studio, I feel most thankful for the roof over my head and the freedom afforded to me–by living in this country–to create my own business.

This holiday I also thought about the roof over the heads of another family.  Several weeks ago I got together with a group of alums from my elementary school, The Center for Early Education, to do a Habitat for Humanity project.

We all met one Saturday morning–early–to put the finishing touches on a home being built for the Monroy family.  The Monroys are a family of three children and a single mother who have always dreamed of having a home of their own.  The two Monroy boys are autistic and require a lot of extra attention from their mother who is already stretched to provide for her family.

My job that Saturday was to clear and level the yard in preparation for landscaping.  The Monroys are particularly exited to have a yard so the children may play safely outside.

As I sat around the Thanksgiving table with my own family, I thought about the Monroys, who for the first time would be sitting around their Thanksgiving table under the shelter of their own roof.