November 24, 2016 - Thankful vs. Grateful

If you are a weekly reader of this column, then you will be reading this sometime around Thanksgiving Day. The name of this holiday got me thinking about feeling thankful for something – which is a purpose of the day and not, as some would have you believe, about eating more than is humanly possible—and what the difference is between the words “thankful” and “grateful”. There must be a difference, or we could call the holiday “Gratitude-giving Day” instead or at least interchangeably. In a usage note, the Cambridge dictionary says that “grateful” is the word we use to talk about how we feel when someone has been kind or does us a favor and that “thankful” is used when we talk about feeling relieved that something bad, dangerous, or unpleasant didn’t happen. When you think about these definitions and the first Thanksgiving by the Pilgrims and other early colonists. Most were thankful to have survived the ocean journey, most where thankful that there was a harvest of any sort, and that there was game to hunt. Early thanksgiving celebrations were tied to that feeling of relief that nothing bad, unpleasant, or dangerous has happened. Nowadays, while we’re sitting around the Thanksgiving table with family and friends, our feelings may lean a little more towards gratitude. We are grateful for the opportunity to be sharing a meal with loved ones. We are grateful that someone in the family has organized this event and invited us. But we are also thankful that we can all be together again for another holiday; that everyone has arrived safely; that we have enough. The library staff wishes you a happy Thanksgiving filled with feelings of both gratitude and thankfulness. Below you will find some books that may help you get through Black Friday when you may not be feeling neither grateful nor thankful. Enjoy!