{"id":186,"date":"2013-11-24T06:00:46","date_gmt":"2013-11-24T11:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/?p=186"},"modified":"2013-11-24T09:33:26","modified_gmt":"2013-11-24T14:33:26","slug":"i-have-many-things-to-be-thankful-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/?p=186","title":{"rendered":"I have many things to be thankful for"},"content":{"rendered":"

And so do my kids, nieces and nephews<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

By Kelly Hockenberry<\/strong>, Columnist, The Times<\/em><\/p>\n

\"UTKellyRev2Column\"<\/a>My memories of Thanksgiving as a child are some of my most precious.\u00a0 Our (not so large) extended family would gather at my Great Aunt\u2019s house for food (including tons of desserts\u2026my grandfather and his brother owned a few bakeries!) laughter and love.<\/p>\n

We would play touch football with our cousins and then come inside to watch more football followed by The Wizard of Oz.\u00a0 My sisters and I never wanted to leave at the end of the night.<\/p>\n

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it doesn\u2019t involve gifts, just togetherness.\u00a0 It is certainly a time to reflect on all of the blessings in our lives.\u00a0 There is nothing better than to hear the perspective of children, so this year, I thought it would be fun to question my boys and my nieces and nephews about what they are grateful for.<\/p>\n

Oh boy, was it hilarious!\u00a0 (Important to note that I listed the items in order of significance as directed)<\/p>\n

\"Kelly1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Jared (16):<\/b> my family and friends (and I hope that no one is reading this article) (and lots of eye rolling)<\/p>\n

Wyatt (12): <\/b>my family, friends, basketball, video games and food<\/p>\n

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\"Kelly2\"<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

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AJ (14):<\/b> my school, brothers to hang out with, awesome parents (wow! Impressive, right?)<\/p>\n

Ian (12): <\/b>ice hockey, my Rubiks cube and puzzles<\/p>\n

Tyler (11):<\/b> being able to do the things I enjoy, like soccer and spending time with my family<\/p>\n

Nate (10): <\/b>Brooks (the dog), my friends at school and family<\/p>\n

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***collectively:\u00a0 \u201cand our favorite Aunt Kelly who put our name in print\u201d\u00a0 (brownie points)<\/p>\n

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\"kelly3\"<\/a>Julia (10):<\/b>\u00a0 my house, my family, food, water and utilities (yes, utilities!)<\/p>\n

Alan (8):<\/b>\u00a0 my family and my I-pad!<\/p>\n

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\"Kelly4\"<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

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Seth (9):<\/b> \u00a0my family, my turtle, shelter, food, water, friends and my electronics<\/p>\n

Teresa (6):<\/b> horses and ponies, family, Tilly (the dog), shelter, food and Christmas<\/p>\n

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\"Kelly5\"<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

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Tristan (8):<\/b> animals, plants and my family<\/p>\n

Jade (5):<\/b> the world, my house, my brother and baby dolls<\/p>\n

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\"Kelly6\"<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

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Julian (4):<\/b>\u00a0 apple pie, Minions from Despicable Me and my family<\/p>\n

Josie (2):<\/b> Grammy, lollipops and kitty cats<\/p>\n

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I couldn\u2019t have said it better myself!<\/p>\n

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And so do my kids, nieces and nephews By Kelly Hockenberry, Columnist, The Times My memories of Thanksgiving as a child are some of my most precious.\u00a0 Our (not so large) extended family would gather at my Great Aunt\u2019s house for food (including tons of desserts\u2026my grandfather and his brother owned a few bakeries!) laughter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[136,137,138,135],"class_list":["post-186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-featured","tag-family","tag-kids","tag-memories","tag-thanksgiving"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}