Yes, Thanksgiving is a time for family and for gratitude, a time for us all to thank our lucky stars for the blessings we enjoy as members of Stéphane Dion's travelling press pack.

And we've just been blessed with the news that we still have — gulp — 11,808 kilometres to go before we're done.

Yes, it's another last-minute, cross-country, red-eye marathon.

Remember Paul Martin's epic gallop across the country in the 2004 election? Cynics saw it as a sign of desperation, but you can't say he didn't give it everything he had.

Dion can hardly do less. So he's going to flog his 29-year-old gas-guzzling Air Inuit plane as hard as it will go, all the way from Toronto to Fredericton to Vancouver to Montreal in the frantic final moments of the campaign.

Yes, that adds up to almost 12,000 clicks. And, yes, he's paying for carbon offsets to compensate for the plane's prodigious emissions. (And, no, you don't get air miles on Air Inuit.)

But away with such gripes. Joy is everywhere. After Stephen Harper mistakenly urged Canadians to make the right choice on "February 14th", the Liberals thoughtfully decorated their press room in Newmarket with pink hearts. And pink carnations and heart-shaped candies!

Truly, it's time to join hands and give thanks.

—Terry Milewski