While the turkey is in the oven and the football games are on television Thursday, we encourage everyone to look around at those they are celebrating the holiday with.

In today’s technology based world, where time is money, there isn’t a lot of time for slowing down.

Thursday is a rare opportunity for the majority of us to have a day off work, to put up our cell phones, tablets, laptops, video games and work down for a few hours and enjoy the comfort of family and friends.

Like always, when we really think about it, there’s a lot to thankful for this year.

There are many out there not as fortunate that don’t have good food and company for the holiday.

We’re thankful for the charities, such as the Salvation Army, working hard to provide for those that could use some assistance for the holidays.

We also are thankful for those keeping us safe — the fire fighters and police officers that are out working today. While most of us are inside and warm, these men and women are patrolling the streets, which is something we can never thank them enough for.

We’re also thankful we live in a place where we have freedom of the press and even though there is bad news, there is a lot of good in the community that we get to report on.

We are also thankful for our print and digital subscribers, who put their trust in us to report fair and unbiased news. Although not all of our readers will always agree with what we write, we thank them for their support and opinions, which only make us stronger as a staff. We also thank our advertising partners for trusting us to spread their message.

There really is a lot for all of us to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.