My pumpkin pie is baking in the oven as we speak and while my house is still warm with the colors of autumn and leaves and pilgrims and ghords, the outside is being transformed into that most exciting time of the year. Tiny white lights will begin to twinkle at my doorstep before the day is finished.

But there is something so special and intimate about Thanksgiving that I hope, even in my excitement of the coming season, never to overlook this wonderful and pure remembrance.

May your day tomorrow be filled with gratitude for the blessings and challenges you've faced this year. Big and small, good and ... even hard. There are lessons to be learned, friends and family to cherish, memories to make, celebrations to commemorate. And through it all, may thanksgiving fill your heart and mind as you gather with those you love.

And may we also never forget those first settlers that came to a distant land because they believed in a better way of life, a place to worship God as they chose. Through hardship, disease and even death, they set in motion a set of ideals that Americans enjoy today, some 393 Thanksgivings since.