Thanksgiving is less than a week away, and usually about this time of the year, I'm feeling excited to see my family. This year, there's some trepidation.

Sure I love them and miss them, but it's been an incredibly stressful election year. My family doesn't usually let differences in opinion affect our relationships, but there are a lot of people on the Internet talking about canceling the holiday or feigning a heavy workload to get out of going to dinner.The thing is that differing opinions is one of the great things about this country. It's OK if your opinions are polar opposites from someone else. It's OK to if you want to peacefully protest what you think is wrong. It is your right; freedom of speech is your constitutional right.The majority of us are descendants of immigrants, people who came here from countries where their freedom was restricted - their freedom of religion, their freedom to have an opinion, their freedom to be who they wanted to be. They came here, because they believed that it was here that they could determine their own future.We need to remember that there is one common value held by both pro-Trump and pro-Hillary supporters. It is a love for this country. Both, through their individual opinions, want the United States to be strong, prosperous and to continue as a world leader.I was saddened when I read that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani called the election protesters "a bunch of spoiled crybabies." He totally missed the point of why they are protesting.It isn't because their candidate didn't win. It's because they fear what this country could become under the leadership of a man endorsed by hate groups.I'm not old enough to remember what the United States was like when black people couldn't sit in the same theater section as whites or drink from the fountains or go to the same schools. I don't know what it was like to be told that being a doctor, lawyer or engineer was not the place for a woman.But I heard stories.Unfortunately, I am old enough to have a few of my own.As a child, I experienced hate from adults who didn't like Catholics. But I'm comforted in knowing that my Catholic, immigrant grandfather was among the men who fought off the KKK when they burned crosses in his neighborhood.As a teenager, I was told by my old, male trigonometry teacher "not to worry my pretty little head" with questions about math.And as an adult, this was an April Fools' joke my Mexican-born, legally immigrated, best friend played on me - a long time ago. She called me on the phone in a panic and said she was being deported to Mexico because she was mistakenly mixed in with a group of Mexican migrant farmworkers.On Sunday, I saw a news clip on television of a young woman in tears because she was afraid members of her family would be deported to Mexico under the new administration."Make America Great Again."America is great. We are not homogeneous like many other countries, but that's why we are great. Instead of fighting civil wars because you are from one group and I am another, we work together and build a strong economy.We are black, red, white, Asian, Indian, and descendants and immigrants of probably every country in the world. We are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, atheist and everything in between. We are tolerant of others who are different from ourselves.I am thankful that my ancestors came here - from those who immigrated in the 1700s to my grandfather who immigrated in 1911.I am thankful for my belief in God that sustains me in times of uncertainty. He gives me hope.I am thankful to have a house to go to each evening and food when I'm hungry. There are families who are homeless and children who are hungry.And yes, I am thankful to have family with whom I can celebrate the holidays. I know our love for each other in stronger than our different opinions, because I know we respect each other.