Once you get past family, friends, health, the troops, freedom and a few other obvious and heartfelt points of gratitude, you have to dig a little these days to find things to be thankful for.
It's very tough, for example, to be thankful for political leaders compressed into inaction by hidebound ideology at one end, and well-heeled special interests on the other.
It's tough to be thankful for an economic system that continues to be so easily manipulated with such destructive and enduring consequences.
It's tough to be thankful for our institutions of respect, when they keep proving themselves unworthy of it.
I think we can, however, be thankful for each other.
The worst of our instincts gets the most of our attention.
But we are essentially good people living in an essentially good country; often fallible, but more often first in line to help; often venal, but more often likely do the right thing.
On levels that are easier to access some days than others, I think we believe that.
I think we have an indestructible hope that as bad as things get, if we work hard enough and talk long enough, we'll find our way out of the forest.
It's who we are. And I'm thankful for that.