Come Thursday, New Yorkers from all walks of life will sit down for a Thanksgiving feast. In a city that famously celebrates diversity, whether religious, political, or ethnic, Thanksgiving is the only holiday that all New Yorkers can be counted on to celebrate.

And parents all around the city will let out a sigh of relief. There is no lengthy service for our children to sit quietly through, no expectation that they’ll be peaceful during the meal. Thanksgiving is a time of chatter and merriment, and boisterous behavior is par for the course. There is even the hope that your son or daughter will be seated next to a great-aunt who is actually amenable to the chance to spend the evening feeding and cleaning up after a child.

There is more than just the meal to look forward to. For those of us with young children, there is no more spirited activity than taking the kids to watch the Macy’s Day Parade floats being blown up on Wednesday evening along 77th and 81st streets. Your children may have seen a life-size Barney at some extravagant birthday party, but seeing a two-story SpongeBob – now that is an entirely different experience.

Thanksgiving offers families a variety of activities to partake in together, ones where we parents can relive our childhood fantasies as we hand down long-standing family traditions. The weekend football game in frosty weather wearing only sweatshirts? The Scrabble tournament in which the players remember last year’s score? This – not just the marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes – is what Thanksgiving is about.

Some years the holiday will even coincide with the first snowfall. No matter how many seasons you’ve been around to watch the first flakes hit the ground, this is an exhilarating moment.

I feel for the Thanksgiving table that doesn’t have a child or two to liven up the festivities; your family members will be grateful to you for producing these lively little whippersnappers. Because no matter how much havoc they manage to wreak, on Thanksgiving your children’s antics will be seen in their most positive light.

Fall feels most to me like the season of renewal. It is a season that easily lends itself to a certain kind of important continuity that is embodied by Thanksgiving.

And while Thanksgiving is the biggie, there are other reminders in these weeks, some with a little less gravitas, of just how precious it is to be able to pass on traditions – big and small – to my children. What better signal that the holiday season is upon us than that first crate of clementines? Even my 2-year-old can now open them herself.

For my family, the ultimate Thanksgiving-is-almost-here moment is the arrival of Mallomars in the grocery store. Because Mallomars melt in the warmer months, they are only stocked October through April. It seems as if I have awakened in my kids a certain predisposed genetic weakness to this semi-sweet confectionary, as we somehow manage to gobble down box after box in the first few weeks of their arrival.

Do not let these moments pass without an offer of thanks. They may seem minor, but they are what raising children is all about.

Thanksgiving is a time to count our blessings, and there is no doubt that we parents are the most blessed of all. The moment you have a child you realize that the greatest gift in this life is to be able to feel a love as strong as parents do for their children. And to be healthy and live long enough to raise your children into adulthood? There is no greater blessing.

I may know more about the first Thanksgiving this year, than I have ever before, thanks to reading “If You Were at the First Thanksgiving,” with my first-grader. This Scholastic book, written by Anne Kamma, is a fabulous, in-depth look at Pilgrim life in the 1620s that your children will not want to put down.

But more importantly, with my family healthy, I know more about my own thanks-giving than ever before. It is at home, with my husband and children, that I’ll start counting my blessings this year and offering thanks.