My Annual Thanksgiving Post - Now With Exciting A/V Content Added!

Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing.... Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

-- Psalm 100:2, 4

ANYA: I love a ritual sacrifice.
BUFFY: It's not really a one of those.
ANYA: To commemorate a past event, you kill and eat an animal. It's a ritual sacrifice. With pie.

-- Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Pangs" by Jane Espenson

Thanksgiving is a holiday, and holidays are rituals. And one of my holiday rituals is to give thanks to you, Noble Reader, for reading. Not all sentences said ritualistically are heartfelt -- it goes with the territory -- but this one always is.* I am thankful that you have dropped by; I hope you will come back again. That I am copying and pasting this paragraph from last year's post -- save for this self-referential sentence -- does not in any way alter or diminish this fact (he said speech act-ily.)

In, however, a desperate attempt to enliven this ritual with some exciting! new! content, here is a video clip of the exchange from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode quoted above:



Oddly, there is no youtube clip of David Ha-Melech saying the appropriate clip from the Psalms. All they have is a few odds and ends -- the famous bits, Psalm 23, and all that. Anyone have it and want to upload it? I promise to post it next year...

I wish everyone a joyful Thanksgiving, however (and whether) you celebrate it, and to whomever (and however) you give thanks.

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* Yes, that sentence noting that the ritualistic sentence is said not just ritualistically but sincerely is now, itself, a part of my Thanksgiving ritual. I will note that it, too, is said sincerely and not just realistically, and shudder at the inevitable extrapolation of this trend. (As, for instance, the slightly odd shudder I get at copying & pasting the previous sentence from last year's post...)