I was trying to remember the last time I had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, sitting around the dining room table with family and eating turkey.

<img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-136" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/thanksgiving-300x220.gif" alt="" width="300" height="220" />Unless I'm mistaken, it was 1987, and I was living in Greeley, Colo.

I was alone at that point in my life, and my editor invited me to come for dinner with his family.

Before that it must have been 1980 0r '81, which would have been the last time I was living in Virginia and had Thanksgiving with my own family.

It isn't as if I haven't had some wonderful Thanksgivings with Nicole and the children, but since my wife didn't grow up in the United States, she never got locked into the semi-indentured servant role of spending two days cooking while the men watched football. We have traditionally had our Thanksgivings at one particular restaurant in Pasadena, where we have eaten wonderful meals.

It isn't the meal that makes it special, though. It's sitting around with the people we love and telling each other the things that have made us happy or thankful in the last year.

Since I'm not having a Thanksgiving dinner this year, I'll have to use this space to talk about the things for which I'm thankful.

I am thankful for my wife Nicole, the love of my life, my soulmate and my favorite person in the entire world. The 17-plus years we have been married have been the best years of my life, and life continues to get better as we spend more time together.

[caption id="attachment_137" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Pauline and Maddy"]<img class="size-medium wp-image-137" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/maddie-mariners-300x225.jpg" alt="Pauline and Maddy" width="300" height="225" />[/caption]

I am thankful for my two wonderful children, Pauline and Virgile. Both were a joy to watch as they were growing up and both have been wonderful adults as well. They are high achievers, responsible adults and good people. I think both of them will make a mark in the world, particularly in the the positive effect they will have on the people who come into contact with them.

I am thankful for their wonderful spouses, Ryan and Sterling. My son-in-law and my daughter-in-law are both impressive people and both have the most important quality of all -- they love my children. Ryan has already proven himself as a terrific husband, and although Sterling is just starting her marriage, I have no doubt she will be an outstanding wife and friend to Virgile.

I'm certainly grateful for the newest joy of my life, little Madison Nicole Kastner. She fell asleep on my chest when she was 10 days old, and I have been crazy about her ever since. She and her future brothers, sisters and cousins are the biggest motivation I have to live a really long life.

I am definitely thankful -- even though I don't show it often enough -- for the love I have received from my parents, my siblings and other members of my extended family. I was raised by and with extraordinary people that it was my misfortune not to appreciate enough.

Once was the time I was thankiful to be an American. I believed all the propaganda about this being the greatest country on Earth, and maybe it still was when I was a child. But I think the love and pursuit of money and power have weakened us tremendously, and if it weren't for the fact that almost everyone who matters to me in the world lives here, I think it might look over the horizon for my retirement.

At any rate, I have been blessed -- and I am very thankful for that.

Happy Thanksgiving.