The Thanksgiving celebration holds special significance for Mattese Lecque, retired Major with the United States Army Reserves. Having spent many Thanksgivings away from family during military service, she understands that this holiday transcends turkey dinners and festive decorations it represents an opportunity to pause, reflect, and express genuine gratitude for life’s blessings.
For Mattese, a meaningful Thanksgiving celebration centers on three foundational elements: authentic gratitude, unwavering faith, and genuine connection with loved ones. Her unique perspective, shaped by military service, healthcare work as a Physician’s Assistant, and decades of community leadership, offers valuable insights for creating holidays that nourish the soul rather than exhaust the spirit.
Through Mattese’s guidance, your Thanksgiving celebration transforms from stressful obligation into sacred opportunity for reflection, renewal, and authentic joy.
The Military Perspective on Thanksgiving
Mattese’s 26 years of military service provide unique insight into what makes a Thanksgiving celebration truly meaningful.
Gratitude Born from Sacrifice
Military service teaches profound appreciation for simple blessings others take for granted. When you’ve celebrated Thanksgiving in deployment conditions away from family, in austere environments, sometimes in danger you develop deep gratitude for ordinary comforts like warm homes, abundant food, and loved ones’ presence.
This perspective transforms the Thanksgiving celebration from routine tradition into heartfelt recognition of freedoms and blessings secured through sacrifice both by service members and by the families who support them.
Remembering Those Who Serve
For Mattese, every Thanksgiving celebration includes remembering military personnel who cannot be home with their families. She encourages everyone to honor service members during their holiday observance through prayer, sending care packages, supporting military families, or simply acknowledging the sacrifice that protects our freedom to gather in peace.
Faith at the Center of Celebration
Mattese’s book “You Can’t Make Me Doubt Him” reveals her deep faith foundation. This spiritual conviction shapes how she approaches the Thanksgiving.
Thanking the Source of All Blessings
For Mattese, a meaningful Thanksgiving celebration begins with acknowledging God as the source of every blessing. Before addressing logistics like menu planning or guest lists, she emphasizes spiritual preparation reflecting on the year’s gifts, recognizing divine provision through challenges, and expressing heartfelt gratitude through prayer.
Her active service as Trustee Board Officer and Financial Secretary at Saint Peter’s AME Church in North Charleston demonstrates how faith communities can enhance the Thanksgiving celebration through corporate worship, shared meals, and collective gratitude.
Gratitude Through All Circumstances
Mattese teaches that you can overcome obstacles regardless of circumstances. This principle applies powerfully to the Thanksgiving celebration. Even in difficult years marked by loss, hardship, or disappointment, reasons for gratitude exist. Faith enables finding thankfulness amid trials, recognizing growth through challenges, and trusting divine purpose even when circumstances seem bleak.
Creating Meaningful Thanksgiving Traditions
Mattese’s memoir “The Make-Over: Re-imagining & Recreating Myself” demonstrates that transformation involves examining what works and changing what doesn’t. Apply this wisdom to your Thanksgiving celebration traditions.
Simplify the Menu
The Thanksgiving celebration shouldn’t exhaust the cook or create financial strain. Mattese encourages simplified menus focusing on quality over quantity. Consider potluck-style gatherings where guests contribute dishes, reducing one person’s burden while creating shared investment in the meal.
Her healthcare background reinforces that stress undermines health and joy. A simpler Thanksgiving celebration protects your wellbeing while still honoring the holiday’s essence.
Share Stories and Gratitude
Make storytelling central to your Thanksgiving celebration. Go around the table asking each person to share something they’re grateful for, a challenge they overcame this year, or a favorite memory. These conversations create connection that outlasts the meal.
Mattese’s work with the Burke Foundation for Student Enrichment and Mentoring reflects her commitment to intergenerational connection. The Thanksgiving celebration offers perfect opportunity for elders to share wisdom and young people to voice their perspectives.
Serve Together
Incorporate service into your Thanksgiving celebration. Volunteer as a family at a food bank, deliver meals to homebound neighbors, or invite someone who would otherwise spend the holiday alone. Service transforms the celebration from self-focused gathering to purpose-driven blessing.
Through her community leadership roles including Commissioner with Charleston County Park & Recreation Commission, Mattese demonstrates that serving others enriches our own lives immeasurably.
Navigating Thanksgiving Challenges
While ideally joyful, the Thanksgiving celebration can present real challenges that Mattese’s experience helps address.
When Grief Shadows the Holiday
For those who lost loved ones, the Thanksgiving celebration intensifies pain. Empty chairs at the table and absent traditions create heartache. Mattese emphasizes the process of grief and how to not succumb to depression. She teaches about fueling your life with things that may leave a legacy on your behalf and the deceased one.
Honor lost loved ones during your celebration. Light a candle in their memory. Share favorite stories about them. Continue traditions they loved. Give yourself permission to feel both grief and gratitude simultaneously.
When Family Dynamics Are Difficult
The Thanksgiving celebration often forces interaction with challenging family members. Old conflicts resurface, differing values clash, and tension threatens the gathering.
Establish boundaries before your Thanksgiving celebration. Decide in advance which topics you won’t discuss, how long you’ll stay, and what behavior you won’t tolerate. Mattese’s military leadership taught her that effective leaders maintain both compassion and boundaries wisdom applicable to family gatherings.
When Resources Are Limited
Limited finances shouldn’t prevent a meaningful Thanksgiving celebration. Mattese’s message that it doesn’t matter if you were born with nothing you can create joy and meaning regardless of resources applies perfectly here.
Focus on what you can control: your attitude, your gratitude, your presence for others. The celebration measures success by love shared, not money spent.
Gratitude as Daily Practice
While the Thanksgiving celebration focuses attention on gratitude one day annually, Mattese encourages making thankfulness a daily practice.
Military service taught Mattese that gratitude sustains morale during difficult circumstances. Through her healthcare work, she discovered that grateful patients often heal better. Personal journey through loss and transformation confirmed that gratitude provides resilience through life’s challenges.
Use the Thanksgiving celebration as catalyst for establishing year-round gratitude practices daily journaling about blessings, expressing appreciation to others regularly, and recognizing gifts even in difficult circumstances.
Legacy and Thanksgiving Celebration
Mattese’s emphasis on legacy provides powerful framework for the holiday. Years from now, what do you want people to remember about celebrations with you?
Not the perfectly cooked turkey or elaborate decorations, but your genuine gratitude, generous spirit, welcoming presence, and ability to create meaningful connection amid imperfection.
When you approach the Thanksgiving through the legacy lens, priorities clarify. Energy flows toward what matters spiritual depth, authentic connection, service to others, and modeling healthy gratitude.
Practical Thanksgiving Tips
Based on Mattese’s experience and values, here are practical suggestions for a meaningful holiday:
Start with Prayer – Begin your Thanksgiving celebration with heartfelt prayer, acknowledging God’s provision and expressing sincere gratitude.
Involve Everyone – Assign tasks to all guests, from young children to elderly relatives. Shared contribution creates investment and reduces one person’s burden.
Protect Margins – Don’t over-schedule your Thanksgiving celebration. Build in rest time, flexibility for spontaneous connection, and space for reflection.
Document Gratitude – Create a gratitude journal where family members record thankfulness throughout the day. Review it annually at future celebrations.
Extend Invitation – If you have space and resources, invite someone who would otherwise spend the Thanksgiving celebration alone international students, military members, elderly neighbors, or new community members.
Release Perfection – Give yourself permission for an imperfect Thanksgiving celebration. Burnt rolls, awkward moments, and unexpected challenges don’t ruin the day they make it authentically human.
Conclusion: Cultivating Authentic Thankfulness
The Thanksgiving celebration by Mattese Lecque isn’t about impressive meals or perfect gatherings. It’s about cultivating authentic thankfulness, expressing genuine gratitude, honoring sacrifice, connecting meaningfully with loved ones, and recognizing divine provision through all circumstances.
Mattese’s life demonstrates that gratitude isn’t reserved for easy times when blessings overflow. True thankfulness emerges when we choose gratitude despite challenges, recognize growth through adversity, and trust that even difficulties serve purpose.
This Thanksgiving, let her example inspire your celebration. Simplify logistics to protect what matters. Center the day on faith and genuine connection. Serve others alongside enjoying abundance. Honor those who sacrifice so we can gather safely. Create space for authentic emotion both joy and grief.
The Thanksgiving celebration you create today becomes the legacy you leave tomorrow. Make it reflect your deepest values: faith in God’s provision, gratitude for all blessings, love for family and community, and commitment to serving others.
May your Thanksgiving celebration overflow with authentic gratitude, meaningful connection, and renewed awareness of life’s precious gifts.
Celebrate with gratitude. Gather with purpose. Give thanks with your whole heart.
