Thanksgiving

If you won't be spending Thanksgiving with relatives, who will you be with and why? Send essays of no more than 200 words to Community Voices/Thanksgiving at the addresses listed in the Where to Write box above. The deadline is Oct. 23. Questions? Call Cynthia Henry, assistant editor, at 215-854-2959.

To commemorate the Thanksgiving holiday, many churches and synagogues will host Thanksgiving interfaith community services tomorrow. Among them are: West Chester community service, 7:30 p.m. at SS. Peter and Paul Church, 1325 Boot Rd. Rabbi David Glanzberg-Krainin of Kesher Israel Congregation will be one of the speakers. Marple-Newtown Clergy Association service, 8 p.m. at St. Anastasia Roman Catholic Church, 3302 West Chester Pike, Newtown Square. Rabbi Barry Blum will deliver the sermon.

My 4-year-old daughter recently learned to say grace at mealtimes. I taught her the same little prayer my mom taught me in childhood: God is great, God is good. Let us thank Him for our food. By His hands we all are fed. Give us Lord our daily bread. Amen. At first, my daughter questioned the need for reciting this strange passage. "Why do we have to thank God?" she wondered. "To show that we are grateful for our daily bread," I explained. " 'What is 'grateful?' " she asked.

Before the toasts, before the stuffing, sometimes even before the kickoffs, comes the grace. At Thanksgiving tables far and wide this week, parents and grandparents will rise and offer their blessings to the assembled. This can be an awkward moment in households unaccustomed to praying aloud. In many other homes, though, the blessings are joyous and freely offered. From the first, Thanksgiving has been set apart as a prayerful day, and it has brought a rich trove of blessings.

Villanova has learned the rest of its possible competitors for the Old Spice Classic basketball tournament over Thanksgiving weekend in Orlando, Fla. The field also will include Penn State, George Mason, Kansas State, Central Florida, North Carolina State, Rider, and South Carolina. The Old Spice Classic games will be televised by ESPN2 and ESPNU from Nov. 22 to 25. All eight teams will play three games in a bracketed-tournament format at the Milk House at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex.

Just as they share at the dinner table on Thanksgiving, many families share football - on TV or in a stadium of high school fans. Especially fathers and sons, some of whom have suited up in the uniform of the same school to play Thanksgiving games. At least six families share the distinction of having played, or participated, in the same Thanksgiving game. In one case, four generations have played for the same school. Interestingly, all these combinations of fathers and sons - the Pettines, the Millers, the Deckers, the Baurs, the Gilberts and the Morgantis - have passed the same first name down at least one generation.

The Jaindl farm in Orefield, Lehigh County, is a family affair in the fullest sense. On one side are Fred Jaindl, his four sons and three daughters. On the other are about 1.1 million turkeys who are bred, hatched, grown and processed at the farm each year - including 200,000 that get gobbled up for Thanksgiving. The Jaindls even grow their own crops for feed on the 10,000- acre operation, which has been a going concern for about 50 years.

The students - some outfitted in American Indian and Pilgrim attire, others dressed as turkeys or cranberry bushes - enthralled their standing-room-only audience. Flash bulbs popped and video cameras hummed, while parents offered last-minute stage direction - "Tilt your feathers," "Straighten your hat" and "Comb your hair down" - from the audience. It's not all turkey and stuffing at Thanksgiving. At least not for the 200 youngsters who attend Conshohocken Elementary School. As part of a special Thanksgiving celebration, the students spent last month focusing on the origin of the holiday and on being thankful.

There were still deposits of strange makeup in a few hard-to-reach places. Choice candy bars rested atop the trick-or-treat haul. And the jack-o'-lantern still had a good week or so to go before it would decay into a reeking pulp. And yet, there it was: a smarmy Christmas commercial for Kay Jewelers, where every kiss begins with K - and ends with a maxed-out credit card. Kay wasn't the only perpetrator. The Gap's annoying cheer factory was pumping out bilious chants about the pressing need to stuff stockings before Veterans Day. Kmart, Wal-Mart, and Hyundai were hot on their heels with must-shop-now Christmas advertisements.

THANKSGIVING is my favorite holiday. It is our most splendid American feast day, a celebration of abbondanza, our teeming abundance. Thanksgiving is also special for me because it is the day my partner Greg and I celebrated the anniversary of our first meeting, and even after we parted, we still observed this day of thanks for each other. And 20 years ago, I thought Thanksgiving 1985 would be my last. My friend, Dr. John Fryer, a psychiatrist at Temple University, suggested in July 1985 that I apply for an opening at the Philadelphia AIDS Task Force (PATF)

A Plumstead Township man with a record of motor-vehicle violations will be charged in the fatal car crash that killed a 9-year-old girl in Doylestown Township last month, authorities said Wednesday. Doylestown Township police and the Bucks County District Attorney's Office have scheduled a news conference for 11 a.m. Thursday to announce the arrest of Drew Bodden, 37, in the death of Holly Huynh on the night before Thanksgiving. Authorities have said they believed Bodden was speeding when his Ford Mustang rear-ended a Honda CR-V just before 7 p.m. on the northbound Doylestown Bypass.

DUI arrests in Delaware and Montgomery Counties and Philadelphia increased significantly during the Thanksgiving weekend compared with the same period last year, state police said Wednesday. State police said they arrested 45 people in the three counties for DUI offenses from Wednesday through Sunday night, compared with 28 in 2011. They reported 108 crashes, 13 of which were alcohol-related, compared with 122 last year, eight of which were alcohol-related. State police spokesman Cpl. Gerard McShea said the increase in DUI numbers likely was due to increased enforcement resulting from more funding.

PHILADELPHIA POLICE on Tuesday announced the arrests of four suspects in connection with the slaying of Johnika Tiggett, a bystander cut down by a stray bullet in Nicetown on Friday. Homicide Capt. James Clark said an arrest warrant had been issued for a fifth suspect, Terrell Antwon, 23, of Cleveland Street near Cayuga, who was still on the lam. Clark said Antwon and the other suspects - Byron McDonald, 19; Anthony Palmer, 33; Roland Thompson, 36; and Rashon Wiggins, 24 - were inside Buffy's bar on Dennie Street near Wayne Avenue when an argument broke out shortly before 1:30 a.m. "It was actually a team of two against three, if you want to call it that," Clark said.

EVEN AS TVs are getting bigger and the Americans who watch them are getting bigger and every down week at cinemas brings out the Chicken Littles wailing about the end of theatrical films, what do you know, people still like to go to the movies. A vampire, a spy and a past president have combined to lift Hollywood to record Thanksgiving revenue at the box office. Kristen Stewart 's finale as Bella Swan in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2" was No. 1 again with $64 million during the five-day holiday stretch, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Thanksgiving weekend can be a tricky time for some high school football teams, with traditional rivalry games interrupting playoff runs. This past weekend underscored the danger to playoff teams. Seven squads still alive in postseason tournaments were "upset" by opponents who were playing their final game. On paper, each of the teams still in the playoffs would have been favored based on record, rankings, or recent success. But that was no forecast for these results: Paul VI over Camden Catholic; Holy Cross over Willingboro; Cinnaminson over Delran; Rancocas Valley over Burlington Township; Lenape over Shawnee; St. Augustine over Cedar Creek; and, most surprising of all, Hammonton over St. Joseph.

The day after Thanksgiving has become synonymous with people camping out, fighting, and occasionally trampling each other in pursuit of a bargain. This year, a group of nonprofit and socially conscious organizations hopes to harness that energy for the greater good. Their national campaign - to brand the Tuesday after the holiday as an annual day of giving - is a product of the digital age, so steeped in social media that its name is a Twitter hashtag: #GivingTuesday. The movement's founding partners include traditional organizations such as the United Way and American Red Cross as well as Microsoft, the online bargain site Groupon, and Mashable, the technology and social media news blog.

The last time the Haddon Heights football team was in possession of the Mayor's Cup, Dante Pinckney was 8 years old and unaware of just how big a factor he would be in such a long-standing rivalry and Thanksgiving tradition. On Thursday, Pinckney, a senior quarterback, threw for 162 yards and ran for 65 more, having a part in both of the Garnets touchdowns as they defeated Haddonfield, 14-7. "This is the best feeling I've had in a while," said Pinckney, who ran for one touchdown and threw for the other.

He had lost a son many years before. Now another was dead, and grief sat on him like the shawl that draped his shoulders as he rattled around the big, cold house. His wife was emotionally troubled and spent money they did not have. His subordinates were insubordinate, convinced he was out of his depth and that they could do better. And his country had split along a ragged seam of geography and race, boys from Maine and Vermont fighting boys from Georgia and Tennessee, their bodies left broken, bloated, bloody, and fly-swarmed by the profligate thousands.

The last time the Haddon Heights football team was in possession of the Mayor's Cup, Dante Pinckney was just eight years old and unaware of just how big a factor he would be in such a long-standing rivalry and Thanksgiving tradition. On Thursday, Pinckney, a senior quarterback, threw for 162 yards and ran for 65 more, having a part in both of the Garnets touchdowns as they defeated Haddonfield, 14-7. "This is the best feeling I've had in a while," said Pinckney, who ran for a touchdown and threw for another.