As I knew would happen, I couldn’t choose just one winner. I had so many entries, and here are the ones I liked best for one reason or the other. These are posted in no particular order, comments I added after each are in blue, and my own Thanksgiving Thanks are at the bottom.

May you have a happy, fulfilling, delicious, fun and family-filled Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for my son Nicholas, born 12 years ago right after Thanksgiving, two months premature and still the most beautiful 3.5 pounds of human being I’ve ever seen. His knees and elbows were baggy, like a Shar Pei, and he had a light coating of blond hair, but he also had the most remarkable stormy blue-grey eyes and such a confused look on his face, as if to say “Mom, what the heck?” My water had broken, but the doctors insisted on putting me in the “ante-natal unit” where they wanted me to somehow keep that child from being born for another month, but Nick was having none of that, and when I went to the bathroom, something slid out of me that felt like an umbillical cord, but when the nurse came in, she gasped and said “That’s a FOOT!” and started running me down the hall to the OR, where literally 15 minutes later, they cut me open and pulled Nick out, rump first! The doctors said he was “Amazing” because he had no physical health problems, other than his lungs being a little small at first. Still, he grew fast, and now he’s 5 foot 3 and weighs 135 pounds, and he is a happy, healthy, smart boy who loves to read, just like his mom.

What an amazing story!

I am more than thankful for the man I call my Dad. He chose to be my father, my friend and my rock. Amidst my biological parents divorce and the turbulence of my teenage years my Dad stepped up. I will be eternally grateful for all the support and guidance he has given me and the unconditionally love he has provided to me. I am thankful he is here to listen to me, here for me to hug and here to continue to tell me that I am special, worthy and good. He is what a parent should be and he is one by choice and not because he has to be. Thank you Dad for being you and loving me. I love you!!

I have a soft spot for amazing dads.

I’m thankful for all the wonderful blogs offering me chances to win this awesome book 🙂

Flattery gets you everywhere! 😉

This Thanksgiving I, along with my family, will assemble CARE packages for our troops who are overseas and away from the people that they love this holiday season. This is how we counteract the obsessive “”me”” attitude that tries to rear its ugly head as Christmas approaches. I find that we are all less greedy after we are reminded that our troops are wishing for things like warm socks and toilet paper.
And with the notes are all written, the custom’s forms all filled out and the boxes sealed and ready to go I will make myself a cup of hot chocolate and giggle about the fact that I have once again purchased underwear for men I don’t know.

I literally laughed out loud reading this one! Thank you for your work helping the troops and thank you for making me laugh.

This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful that my kids, who have been sick for two years with a chronic medical condition (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome – POTS) are getting their lives back & are back in school. I’m thankful to everyone in my community and all my friends who have helped out so much during these last couple of years and to Children’s Hospital, Boston, for their fabulous rehab program!

Congratulations! News this good is definitely worth sharing!

I am thankful for my mother. Since the beginning, she has instilled in me a love of reading. Some of my first memories come from the walks we would take daily to the public library. I also want to thank her for finding the time during her busy day to read aloud to my sister and I before bed each night. With my mother, I learned to explore the universe with Madeline L’Engle, the world beyond the wardrobe with C.S. Lewis, and many many more.

My mother is one of my favorite people in the world

This Thanksgiving I give gratitude for the lessons. I have learned how to be a better friend – both to myself and to others. I have learned that NO is a complete sentence. I have learned that I can say YES to myself, too. My YES to myself includes curling up with a great book, a few cats, and a hot cup of tea…. And saying NO when the phone rings. Happy National Novel Month – and Thanks.

My favorite part of this one: I have learned that NO is a complete sentence. Sometimes I think I still need to work on that.

I am thankful for my son, who brightens each and every day
I am thankful for my job, which provides me with my pay
I am thankful for my friends, who support me in all that I do
I am thankful that I am a reader, because reading gets me through
I am thankful for today, because tomorrow is not promised
I would be thankful if I won this contest… because Jacqueline Carey is a writing GODDESS

If this gets posted I would like to note that Jacqueline is so very talented and out of the thousands of books I have ever read, the Kushiel Saga is my all time favorite, and the only series I have ever read twice!

She wrote this in verse! Just for that this gets posted. 😀

What I am most thankful for is the change to have Tuesday through Sunday off from school so that I may get some homework finished. 🙂 I would love to be able to visit my *lovely, awesome* family in Florida, but will not be able to until the Christmas time. I do not miss the father figure getting frustrated at the women folk because they did not eat the meat substance, but miss the family dinners. I will thoroughly enjoy the visiting that will commence when I get to come down in December.

I’m sure your family will be very happy to see you!

This Thanksgiving I’m thankful for authors. For giving us hundreds (thousands, millions) of new worlds and people to explore and get to know. For giving us an escape when our real life gets too stressful. For making us think, believe, and hope. For teaching us lessons about ourselves and about life. For challenging us. For believing in us. And most of all, for awesome sex scenes ^_^ 

My life has never gone according to plan. When I pictured myself at this age ten years ago, the life I had in mind was very different from the one I’m living now. What I have learned in the past three years, though, is how to be grateful for everything I have, whether it’s what I thought I wanted or not. I am grateful for my mother who has never let me down, even though I’ve sometimes failed her. I am grateful for my middle sister who has always been one of my best friends and who I miss dearly because she lives too far away. I am grateful that moving home earlier this year has allowed me to become closer to my youngest sister who is no longer an alien sent to torment her elder siblings, but an actual human being! I am grateful for my job–which I lucked in to–for putting me on the first step in an actual career path. I am grateful for friends who take the time out of their insanely busy schedules to read my rough drafts, ask a million questions, and spend hours they could be sleeping looking up words in dead languages because they think it might help me. I am also grateful for friends who drop everything at a moments notice to spend an evening with me.I am grateful for successful surgeries, book fairs, Microsoft Word, air-conditioning, good movies, awesome jewelry, authors who give advice, Broadway shows, new desks, NYC, and the color blue. I am also grateful for NaNoWriMo, inspiration, baby name books, amazing music, cork boards, digital cameras, and Flickr. Most of all, I am grateful for the chance to do what I love and the hope that I’ll be able to keep doing it for a very long time.