At Callaway-Jones, we are thankful for our community—this means each one of you who has made Bryan-College Station a better place to live and work.
The season of Thanksgiving marks a time of anxious anticipation of happiness, where gathering as many generations of family together as you can in one place is a time where you can reminisce, remember, and take photographs of family members with your matriarchs and patriarchs. They’re those wise souls with the endless memories who can tell you about your childhood, and even the times before you were born. They will remember when–with you and for you.
Institutional memory is another way that people keep track of progress. Perhaps your business has an employee who’s been with you from the very beginning when you started and who remembers the first customer who walked through the door. Maybe they even framed the first dollar bill from the first sale you made. As the old Dean Martin song goes, “Memories are made of this.”
As we begin to plan for Thanksgiving, some of you will sign up for the Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot, or you may want to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with the kids. Or you’ll be in the BCS Christmas Parade. Amazing to realize it takes almost an entire year to make that annual parade happen.
Speaking of making things happen, this year, Epicures Catering, Chartwells and 2-1-1 Texas are making sure that free Thanksgiving meals are available to those in need—and they’ll deliver them to homes on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 22. Such generosity in our community and so many volunteers and leaders we respect so very much. You make it possible that we all have something to be thankful for.
I’ve started my list of things I’m thankful for here. Please feel free to add your own in the comments section!
Thankful that:
*Our family has an amazing team of professionals that we know is our extended family. Each one of them is a gem, and Chelsea, Lorene and I are grateful for all of them.
*Appreciate all the kindnesses our families share with us in letters, reviews, and e-mails. Winning annual “Best of” competitions with your votes is a most special distinction that lets us know we’re doing right for you and your friends and families.
*Living in Bryan-College Station, a community that remembers “when” with as much fondness as we do. History is preserved here. Buildings like the Clara B. Mounce Library are named for citizens who gave selflessly throughout their careers to add to our historical preservation.
*Grateful for Texas A&M University being in our own back yard; our community is growing with Aggies coming home to retire here in Traditions, Miramont, and South College Station.
*New restaurants are arriving in Bryan-College Station, and long-time favorite restaurants continue to expand and need more space or more locations as we grow.
*Grateful for your referrals. It’s so rewarding to hear, “I attended a funeral here for my friend and I decided that I wanted a service just like that.” You have many choices in the Brazos Valley, and our family appreciates your consideration of Callaway-Jones as you plan ahead, or if you are making arrangements sooner than you expected.
*In our community, our first responders continue to shine, both here at home, in police, fire, and emergency response and out of town. We were so proud when some of our Bryan firefighters traveled to California to help fight major fires for two weeks. We send our best to give their best.
*Our community of faith continues to respond to the challenges of need in our community. Several community service agencies stand ready at a moment’s notice to help provide shelter, clothing, and food—at Thanksgiving and every day of the year. For those with hearts the “size of Texas,” we are grateful.
For friends and family to gather with on Thanksgiving, we have the chance to remember when family members, now gone, were once with us, once headed our families. Although the memories are clear now, let us remember to date and add names on the back of photographs, and make prints of those photos, not just add them to the “cloud” of our service provider. Even clouds leak rain now and then. Backup, backup, backup your photos, and even print them out!
These are just a few of the reasons I’m so grateful. Please feel free to add your reasons for why Thanksgiving is special to you this year.
Wishing you all the best of a day of great food and a weekend filled with football! BTHO LSU!