Here in the United States, the time again draws near in which we celebrate Thanksgiving.

Frankly, this is one area where I think Canadians have the advantage. The "holiday season" is already quite packed and I would have no issue with moving Thanksgiving into October. And New Years' well into February, for that matter.

Thanksgiving for atheists? What an interesting thought. What would I do about Thanksgiving were I an atheist? After all, like any thing which can be given, thanks needs both a sender and a receiver, an origin and a destination.

We might argue there are specific people to which we could each be thankful. Framed a certain way, we could be thankful for our parents for raising us. Or need we? After all, isn't it their duty? We could be thankful the garbageman for taking away the trash, and the FedEx man for bringing it, before entropy set in. But then again, aren't each of these also doing their duty?

Plants grow in the fields. Farmers harvest them. Truckers carry them. Grocery stores stock and sell them. Loved ones cook them. Until the last step, each of these have been adequately compensated for their duty. It could even be argued the rule applies in the last case, then.

Perhaps none of us actually need to be thankful to another person. Even the altruists, we might argue, do good because it benefits them, and thus are paid in full already, without addtional thanks.

Yet another approach might to be to replace "giving thanks" with the undirected "reflecting on your comparative good fortune." But it seems to me, since half of us are below average, this has a rather limited applicability. Half of us can be thankful we're above average in some way, but half of us, then, have no such comparative good fortune for which to be grateful.

And yet Jesus blessed the food and gave thanks for it before he ate it. Not because he was wealthy and good looking -- for we are told he was neither. And his thanks was not to the butcher nor baker, but instead it was a general kind of thanks, which implies all good gifts ultimately proceed from God above.

I do not think it is possible to celebrate "Thanksgiving" in any common, meaningful sense otherwise; the very phrase implies all have a living Someone to be thankful to.

As such, I suspect "Thanksgiving" is a clear poke in the eye to those who think that our forefathers meant "separation of state from any religious beliefs" when they wrote the First Ammendment. If that was what they meant, Lincoln certainly didn't get the memo, nor did any of his fellow countrymen, including the top Constitutional scholars of his time.

I suspect the only reason the ACLU hasn't taken a swipe at it yet is that they fear arousing our anger. But we know that's how they'd feel about it. So if you like this holiday, be thankful, also, that we can still celebrate it, for I fear its days are numbered.

So, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Including to my atheist friends, for whatever you make this holiday mean for yourself.