Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!
In our household, we are incredibly excited about this holiday. We’ll be spending this Thanksgiving with family, something we did not do last year. We are so grateful that we will be able to spend time together with loved ones—cooking, watching football, playing games, feasting, and just hanging out.
The past 20 months have been so difficult and emotionally trying for all of us. But it feels like we have turned a corner, both in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic challenges we’ve faced. Better times are ahead of us and, at least in our family, we are optimistic about what the coming months and years will bring
But Thanksgiving shouldn’t just a time for eating turkey and watching the Detroit Lions lose. As the name of this wonderful holiday indicates, this is also a time when we give thanks. Giving thanks is, I think, particularly important this year, as we have so much to give thanks for and so many people to thank.
So I give thanks for my loved ones, my health, and the opportunity I have as your representative in the California State Senate to try to make the world a better, kinder, and more just place…
And I give thanks to my wife, my family, and my friends for their unflinching love and moral support…
And I give thanks to my church and its leaders and congregation for their spiritual guidance…
And I give thanks to my Senate Office staff for their incredible work and indomitable optimism on behalf of the people we have the privilege of representing here in Orange County…
And I give thanks to our healthcare workers, nurses, and doctors for their courage and selflessness in helping so many of us, including myself this past January, who contracted COVID-19…
And I give thanks to our teachers and school employees, who worked tirelessly to educate our children, including through new technology, and gave our children stability, community, and care through the hardest of times…
And I give thanks to our frontline workers who kept our grocery stores stocked, our streets clean, and our economy running during the past year…
And I give thanks to our firefighters, police officers, and other first responders who put their lives and wellbeing on the line to keep us safe
And I thank you, the amazing people I have the privilege of representing in the 37th Senate District, which includes my home city of Irvine as well as Anaheim Hills, Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, Laguna Woods, Lake Forest, Newport Beach, Orange, Tustin, and Villa Park, for your engagement, your positivity, and your eagerness to work towards creating a better future for our future generations.
As a freshman (about to become a sophomore!) Senator, I am so grateful that I get to serve such an amazing community. I love talking with you and learning from you, and I feel so blessed.
And now to close out this email, I want to share a tradition we (well really just me) have in our household of telling (terrible) Dad jokes each Thanksgiving (actually, not just Thanksgiving but really all the time). For your reading pleasure, here are a few I told earlier this morning.
“Why did the turkey cross the road on Thanksgiving morning?”
- To make people think she was a chicken!
“Speaking of chickens, did you hear about the chicken, duck, and turkey that signed up for acting lessons? It turns out they were looking for signs of fowl play.”
“Why were the cranberries so red at Thanksgiving dinner?”
- They had just seen the turkey get dressed!
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I look forward to seeing you soon.
With an abundance of love and thanks,
Dave MinState Senator, District 37