Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! It is Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend, and the kids are coming. It's going to be a full house situation, as for a lot of you as well, I'm guessing, if you're lucky enough to have your family around. If not, you may call them or have a virtual gathering, as we have grown accustomed to these past few years, right?

I thought I would record this week's blog about family get-togethers like Thanksgiving dinners... Watch the following video or keep reading for more.

If you're spending time with your family this weekend, it's because you have one. Keep this in mind! Very often, we forget about how lucky we are to actually be with loved ones. The kids are coming over, but I'm not going to get to see all my family. I won't see my parents. I won't see my brother, my niece and nephew, my cousins and my aunts... My family is in Quebec. I will have to see them virtually for Thanksgiving this year. As you show up to your family event, try to keep in mind how lucky you are to have some family around. That may help you accept ALL family members.

You know how (it happens in every family) a family member does or says something, and you roll your eyes and think: "Oh my gosh, whatever." Whether it's a parent, or a sibling, it happens all the time, and because there's this familiarity, there's less patience when it comes to how we respond.

What I'm saying is we don't talk to strangers the same way we talk to our own family, and it's totally wrong. So maybe you could try to treat everybody at the gathering as if you were at a cocktail party, meeting people for the first time. How would you act? How would you treat them? With how much respect would you treat people around you if they were strangers?

This may be the one little piece that will make your Thanksgiving gathering that much better, because you will treat everyone with the respect that they deserve. Think about it: They are the people you love the most. They're family. They will be there for you your whole life.

Now, I know some of you may be shaking your head, saying: "Oh, you haven't met my family. I mean, I try to spend the least amount of time as possible with them. They just drive me nuts." Well, you just said, they drive you nuts, but in the end, you decide if you want to be driven somewhere. You decide to get in the car. Nobody has control over your mind and over how you are feeling.

Finally, see if you can find one thing that you really like about that family member, or even better: about each and every one of them! What is it in their character or in their personality that you are grateful for? Because everybody has flaws. The difference is that with our family, we know their flaws, because they are comfortable enough with us to let them show, and sometimes, for that reason, we tend to treat them differently, but we shouldn't.

Let's try to remember that. Find what the good things about them are, and be blinded by the good things.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and happy Thanksgiving to my family in Quebec that I won't get to see this year, but hopefully soon, around Christmas time. Have a great week, and I'll see you soon.

TIRED OF NOT GETTING ALONG WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE

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Check out some of my previous blog posts...