Sharing Our Virtual Thanksgiving Table

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The core of this site is its community. Having conscientious discussion about a post-Peak Oil future with smart, supportive, and experienced minds from all over the planet is an incredibly valuable resource.

At Thanksgiving time on this site, we like to reflect on the good fortune we share: that Chris had the courage to share his Crash Course vision with the world, that this like-minded community has flourished around it, and that we still have the gift of time to make progress in our resiliency-building preparations.

So, let's make the most of the "virtual" Thanksgiving table we've created here at this site, and if you have a moment today, share a thought, story, or photo of what you're thankful for this season.

And remember that while most of us are celebrating today with family and other loved ones, some of us aren't (for reasons of illness, military service, isolation, etc). Sharing in this virtual community may be the most human interaction some of our community members will have today.

For myself, I have much to be grateful for. Re-reading last year's Thanksgiving post, I find much to be true today. But one new development for which I am very thankful is the congregation of talent that has collected to redesign and rebuild this entire site.

Yes, you read that right: A brand-new version of this site is underway. It will address many of the requested improvements you've sent us over the past few years. And it's going to look great, too (in my highly biased opinion).

It will be a few months until the new site launches, so more details will come in a later post once we're ready to start sharing a beta version for you to check out.

But I think we can all agree that having an even better 'virtual table' to meet around in the future is a great reason for giving thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Adam

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://peakprosperity.com/sharing-our-virtual-thanksgiving-table-2/

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what a nice post. yes, we become comrades of a sort in our struggle for a better future.  I wish everyone here good fortune in this new land of America (my grandparents came here because they were hungry, this is similar to many Americans).  I have much to thank for,.  I just started a locavore life in a small isolated island in Japan (we need more people! contact me if interested). I have met many wonderful people here who are like minded builders. carpentry, boat building and maintainence.  I look forward to breaking down barriers and more via this great website. thanks Chris M and thanks everyone else for sharing something this past year…

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 Indeed, thanks for the information provided.Mirv, I’m in Japan also. Tokyo for now but know others from Ishigaki, to Kobe to Gunma, who are quietly getting on with life now, while preparing in their own way for if, for when, there is significant change in daily life.
I’d be keen to connect, and with site moderators approval, I will ask here if you’d like to get in touch. You can do through that through my website below or by searching LinkedIn for Jason Ball in Japan.

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I appreciate the CM community as well as the variety of like minded people I have met in my own neighborhood .  I find that people who seem more emotionally prepared to deal with the lowered standard of living and other changes ahead are those who have experienced poverty, discrimination, etc…and have already toughened up.  And or they have served in the military.  I am learning from them and from everyone here as well.  
Of course some of us have to deal with it alone and I appreciate that Adam acknowledges this hardship.  Fortunately (and contrary to what some say)  I think relationships made on line can be very meaningful and supportive. 

Looking forward to the new upgraded website.

Many thanks to the CM staff for their incredible diligence and commitment.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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I’m thankful that even being on the other side of the world, we could still enjoy Thanksgiving and get introduce the holiday for the first time to family living here.  Sure some of the dishes are different (no Turkeys to be found here!) but the important things, family and good food, are all present and accounted for. 
I’m also thankful for the opportunity that myself and my family have in being able to start a new life and new career.  I know many have far fewer options than we do, so we should appreciate the opportunities we have.

  • Nickbert
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As always, I am thankful for my family and friends, my life, a warm bed and a roof over my head. For my job.
I wanted to share something else that made me even more thankful…

This evening, we went to a second Thanksgiving at someone’s home. It wasn’t someone we knew, but a relative had invited us, as he was providing the turkey and some of the fixings.

It was a very nice house (two-car garage, two stories, wood floors throughout, granite kitchen countertops, etc.) At the time, I felt a little sad that I could only provide my wife and two baby boys with a one-bedroom apartment when everyone else around here has so much more.

Then, in the home office/den with the kids watching some music videos on YouTube, I noticed two pieces of paper lying face-up on a desk, atop other papers…

Now, I happen read pretty  fast, so often I am done skimming words without intending to - like seeing words on a billboard as you drive along a road. (I’m saying this to emphasize that I wasn’t nosing around.) But this is what I saw:

  1. A bank statement: Balance $10.
  2. A credit card statement: Balance Due $28,000-something. Minimum Payment Due: $580-something. Written on the paper was the balance due amount again, larger, with a big circle around it.

Shit, these people are living life on the financial edge!

I was thankful to receive a reminder that I really am blessed - I should not feel bad. We may not have a lot in terms of material possessions or a home (prices are dropping anyway), and we may be using up savings now as my wife isn’t working for money (she works at taking care of our home, our babies, and her school work), but we also don’t have soul-crushing debt like that.

Poet

 

 

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I have always lived well below my means and while not materially wealthy, I am very secure and enjoy my stress free life.  I am thankful that my way of living is validated by the wonderful collection of talent here at CM.
I am particularily thankful that Chris has made it ok to feel good about a simpler lifestyle and a future with much less stuff. 

 

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I’m in the UK, and obviously we don’t ‘do’ Thanksgiving and that makes it bit of an alien cultural event to us. However, it has been interesting going around my favourite US-based blogs as every one seems to have a dedicated Thanksgiving post. It’s a great balancing feature when set against all the loud, in-your-face, pugnaciousness that pours out on 4th July - it helps to dispel the stereotypes and caricatures we harbour for our US cousins. It also underlines that we - as a nation - do not have any event where we just sit down and count our blessings - of course, havng said that, every day is a ‘Mustn’t grumble’ day here :slight_smile:
Anyway, I’d like to add my thanks for all the hard work that goes into maintaining this little corner of sanity on the intenet. And as Andeee has so eloquently stated "I am particularily thankful that Chris has made it ok to feel good about a simpler lifestyle and a future with much less stuff. " It really helps to know you’re not the only one.

Happy holidays to everyone.

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I am most thankful to my Lady (Barb) of 39 years who truly defines me as a Man, Husband, Father, and Grandfather (aka Crappa!, and I love this moniker, wear it proudly). Everything else is the periphery that is enjoyed together, where we love, nourish, and play, with a family now numbering well over 100 hundred direct family members. I have often been asked how I have gotten along with 13 brothers and sisters for all these years, and I simply say that while not the Walton’s (an old TV show), and we never said night John boy, Tommy boy, blah, blah, blah, we did love. The greatest of gifts. Happy Thanksgiving Folks
PS: A special shout out to Chris, Adam, and the posters here who have a grip on the realities, and are willing to stay and fight the good fight right here in the good ole’ USA, the best house in a bad neighborhood.

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Yes. Denise, it does seem those who were "toughened up" by some form of adversity have broken though the "it can never happen to me" denial. But that makes us all the more thankful for what we have. As Poet said, I’m thankful that we are not suffering from soul-crushing debt. But I a, even more thankful that I have the human resources of a farming family with long roots.
Yesterday was spent with 42 family members at the family homestead in South Carolina farm country. I toured the circa 1885 old farmhouse with all the preserved tools of yesteryear; various lows and farm implements and things like a cast iron caldron for rendering lard. All of the old tools from two-man tree-felling saws to tack had been lovingly preserved by the son of one of the original farmers, now in his late 80s (and a professor emeritus of economics married to an accountant). I was surrounded by elderly people in excellent health who were more than willing to share how things were done in simpler times.  After an enormous pot luck Thanksgiving dinner was served–we enjoyed letting the numerous children and the men go first–I was at the table with the womenfolk servers on the porch. We looked out the window at sunset while whe ate, and I noted the black walnut, pears, muscadine grapes,  wheat field, forested hardwood pines, and huge pecan grove - as well as a wealth of flowering shrubs. (One of the little girls had been climbing inside a ten-foot-tall fragrant gardenia). Each of the four homes there has a well and they have two ponds and a large area for hunting.

One Second After was on the kitchen table: the women are making sure it makes the rounds (after which I send them here to watch the Crash Course) and the most recent convert to prepping was the interior designer wife of an executive in a company that does homeland security computer work for border crossings (he had taken the red pill; she was reluctant until now) . The wife of the professor of industrial engineering (at Clemson) is in charge of this red-pill campaign, aided and abetted by the retired army sharpshooter gal who works in HR in a hospital in Charleston. This is her mother’s home and her bugout place. It’s too near I-95 and Charleston for my tastes, but it’s an option for us if our home becomes unlivable, as is the residence in Clemson. We are their alternative bugout place, as well.

We have lost so much joy as we moved further and further away from our relationship with the land. When I see how much we all have to gain by living a simpler more agrarian lifestyle, it gives me something to be thankful for.

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I will be celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow with some American friends. I was working this Thursday as Canadian Thanksgiving occurs in October, so yesterday it was business as usual. (I believe crops are harvested earlier in Canada due to climate, hence the earlier Thanksgiving date, but don’t quote me on that). It’s so cool to see that many of the CM community are in the same predicament - celebrating in their own way all over the map.
So, Happy Thanksgiving to all…wherever you are…however you are celebrating.

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I’m very thankful for the online community and knowledge that Chris and his family and Adam and others make possible here.  I’m thankful for my family and good health.  I’m thankful to be blessed to be able to do so many productive outside activities I have no interest in being a consumer or shopper on this "black friday".  Thanks everyone!

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First off:  many thanks to Dr. Chris and Becca, and Adam and the staff (big shout out to the ever-patient Mods!) for creating this excellent place for this superb community to form.  Beyond that --

I am thankful for the fact that -- near the end of a long Thanksgiving visit -- several members of my wife's family began to discuss SHTF-esque subjects with me and/or my wife.  Yes, after we spent about 20 minutes (out of 2 hours) of the drive from the Mid-Hud to Long Island rueing her family's refusal to see our current predicament clearly -- and trying to figure out how we could best aid their movement out of the Denial stage -- suddenly my brother-in-law is asking me about guns and what's the pistol permitting process like in *our* county (cuz in his it's "completely bullsh!t" [I suggested he start with a 12-gauge insteadregular_smile.gif])...and my sister-in-law is talking to my wife about PMs.  ZONK!  It's just talk, and nobody's discussing food storage or other sustainability/self-reliance concerns (as a matter of fact, my B-i-L's wife said during dinner "I'm not living on a farm.  Won't do it!" [this in response to our tales of chicken harvest {we took my in-laws a chicken from our share of the harvest}]), but I'll take it as a start.

I am thankful for my good health (I am the poster child for good fortune at the Genepool Craps table.  ~2 workdays of manual labor a week doesn't hurt either).  

I am thankful that if the coming year is a muddle-through economy similar to 2011, my wife and I will be completely debt-free (with savings on the side) by then.  I guess what I'm really thankful for is that this year has seen us go from being under an utterly crushing debt load to a manageable-and-shrinking one.

I am thankful for our scintillating community (both in meatspace and right here at CM), who keep surprising me with their passion, curiosity and desire to grow -- and DO.  Whose dedication to making their lives and their world better -- in the face of insurmountable odds and near-ubiquitous ignorance and apathy -- gives me hope.  

As Cyrano posited, the most important fights to fight are the ones that most folks think are in vain.  Our common purpose here is not a hopeless one, no matter what most folks (including many here?) think.  Hope only croaks when the last person who believes the future can be better regardless of the economics of it -- or the social changes that spring therefrom -- lets the spark of that belief die out.  And so my final Thanks is to this gang of Believers Various here at CM.com, the folks who keep on keeping on despite all the salmon-sheeple swimming the other way.  Being inspired by -- and feeling accountable to -- you helps me keep keepin' on.  In so many ways -- wherever we are in our Stages of Awareness or the continuum of preparation and resilience -- we have already won the most important battle:  Ignorance, Apathy and Fear are no longer in control of our lives.  

Thanks to all -- may the Holidays be a time to restore our strength and spirit.  

VIVA! -- Sager

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I heartily share everyone’s thankfulness for Chris, for his site and for its considerate, intelligent members. I can’t begin to express how much wider my vision of the world has become as a result of reading and interacting here. As I attempt to deleverage my life, continue my research and learning, and build a sustainable farm, I will continue to look to the site and its members for guidance.
Thanks so much-
-Peter

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