One thing I love about Thanksgiving is that it's not about shopping, spending or fighting crowds. Yes, the next day is, but I try to stay away from Black Friday madness. Thanksgiving is all about family time and showing gratitude.

On Twitter and Facebook, many are showing their thanks via Epic Thanks, a website celebrating gratitude and soliciting donations for three changemakers: Mike Halley of Halley's K9s for Veterans in Tampa, Subhash Ghimire of Nepal and Mama Lucy in Tanzania. Visitors to Epic Thanks can make donations and/or post their messages of thanks.

In the spirit of Epic Thanks, I inivite you to share your messages of gratitude.

I'll start with a few of mine. I'm grateful for:

• All tampabay.com members -- more than 55,000-- and their comments and contributions to our site.
• Our 4,800+ Facebook fans and their engagement and discussion on our fan page.
• Tampabaycom's and karenmcallister's Twitter followers and their interaction.
• Our Community Photo Gallery members for all the cool photos they share with us.