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With Thanksgiving coming up, I've been trying to brainstorm activities for Thanksgiving for those who may be feeling isolated this holiday season. Having much less luck finding activities for this holiday than I did with Halloween.

It would be nice if some group out there had a virtual Thanksgiving dinner and invited everyone who had no place to go or no family to be with for the holiday. I'm sure there are some organizations and some families that are sharing Thanksgiving virtually. However, I've yet to find a group that is doing so and inviting the general public.

It would be fairly easy to do a virtual Thanksgiving using Jitsi Meet ( https://meet.jit.si/ ). I recently used Jitsi to talk a friend through how to do some tasks on her computer. She couldn't get Zoom working. Google Meet asked for a login which she didn't have. With Jitsi Meet, I just made up a room and we were both able to get on and conference together. She could share her desktop, so I could see exactly what was going on with her computer and talk her through how to do things.

I've checked our local library, Get Together ( https://gettogether.community/ ), Eventbrite and Meetup for Thanksgiving related events. Our library is having a fun baking event that I look forward to attending online. I've seen a few meditation events online centered around giving thanks during the holiday. Vitas is running some special bereavement support events just for the holidays: https://vitas.com/events

I will definitely be doing some holiday baking. I'll be making pecan pie. To deal with nut allergies, I'm substituting ground sunflower and pumpkin seed for the nut butter part of the filling this year. There's a great cranberry sauce recipe for the Vitamix that also makes cranberry juice during the process. Side dishes will probably include a spinach bake and asparagus. Will enjoy seeing what recipe our local library will be sharing at their event.

Thanksgiving is a great time to celebrate the harvest. I have an herb garden and will be making some things with the herb leaves. I'm also going to check out some of the virtual Botanical Garden tours available online. Could be fun to find an online gardening class or gardening group to participate in. I've been checking youtube and https://web.archive.org/web/20201022011009/https://www.mounts.org/virtual-garden-tours/ for calming virtual garden tours. Studies have shown that viewing green environments or walking in them can have a calming effect. Here's a link to one such study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6379348/

It's also a great time to view nature and bird watch. Wikipedia has some good information on identifying birds in your area:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birds
Cornell has some bird watching resources and events as well:
https://www.birds.cornell.edu/

Any time is a good time for meditation. Here are a couple of meditations that might be fitting for the holidays. The first is to list what you're thankful for. Count your blessings. Gratitude meditations can lift your mood. Here's a link with some more information:
https://www.headspace.com/meditation/gratitude
Pure Edge discusses an Attitude of Gratitude activity called Taking in the Good. Think of someone or something in your life that you're grateful for and take some time to just appreciate it.
Pure Edge also does a very interesting breathing meditation that can be very helpful. It's called Starfish breathing ( https://pureedgeinc.org/curriculum/pure-brains-breaks/video-library/ ). You use your hand as a tactile centering tool during the exercise. It reminds me of the art activity for Thanksgiving where you draw the outline of your hand and then turn it into an illustration of a turkey.

The online library archive.org has several resources for Thanksgiving. Many are in the public domain.

If you have some other ideas for ways to celebrate and connect at holiday time, feel free to share them:
http://www.distasis.com/connect.htm

P.S.: So my Thanksgiving didn't turn out as planned and I wasn't able to do most of the things I'd planned to. As you can see from my next post, just trying to keep a roof over my head and find some place with my own kitchen so I don't starve. (I'm down to 88 pounds.) Missed many of the online events this week. Will probably be eating a turkey sandwich for dinner on Thanksgiving. This year, hope to be thankful for a mold free roof over my head (even if it's someone else's roof) and good quality (minimally processed) food that won't make me sick at a table.