ED SAID - In all things give thanks

In all things give thanks

We shouldn’t need a specific time to ‘give thanks’. It’s something we should be able to give at any time and for any occasion and it’s one of the few things you can give that doesn’t actually cost anything – a bit like a hug or a smile.

Given some of the upheaval in the world we should be thankful we are able to do what we do and live the way we live, that our families are clothed and fed and live in a safe environment. Thankful is also a relative term, with many people in the world just thankful to see the light of each day despite how precarious their lives are. Of course we don’t have ‘Thanksgiving’ as the Americans do but I wonder, given we seem eventually to adopt most American-ese, how long before it does creep into our society just as Halloween has in recent times.

I recently met an American turkey who said he was ‘thankful’ (an unusual thing for a turkey) and when I enquired I found he was thankful that he was owned by a vegetarian family. There’s an irony here too in that Turkey is one of the few countries in the world that doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving.

From our point of view, we at the Focus are thankful for the support we have from readers, contributors and advertisers throughout the year. We’re thankful that, though it’s only three weeks until the first issue for 2013 we can turn off our computers and thumb our noses at the world for a wee while.

We are thankful for a fast Internet connnection! We are thankful we haven't been spammed (well, nothing we can’t handle). We are thankful to have got through the year without a major computer crash. We are thankful our favorite forums aren’t down and that we don't have The Good Times virus! We are thankful for a vast selection of websites to browse for news and information and yet we don’t really know who they are. We’re thankful for all the cyber sundaes we have been sent, and yet we didn't gain one ounce of weight.

All in all it’s been an interesting year and no doubt some won’t be in a hurry to be thankful they live in the Kaipara but when you weigh things up the pluses far outweigh the minuses. Pretty soon we’ll be besieged by Jafa’s or, as some prefer, Dorklanders. We need to be especially thankful of them too as, without them – their trade, knowledge, purchasing power and monetary input – Mangawhai would be a much lesser place.

Check out our ‘What’s On’ list. Do the family thing if you can but otherwise do something different, with someone different and be thankful you can.

I think I’ve almost used up my allotted number of words for the year but on behalf of the team – Melody, Del, Richard, Dan and Jaimee – this is Rob signing off for 2012.

Thanks.