Gratitude or Thankfulness

I just had an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving. Grant and I drove with Alchemy out to my parents house in Damon where we got to spend time with them, my sisters Lisa and Gina, and my niece Sarah. It was so good getting family time all together for the first time in a long long time. Lisa and Sarah finally got to meet Alchemy.  Now as we are driving home from their house back to Austin, I find myself thinking about a practice I have seen a lot of lately where people listed one thing they were thankful for each day leading up to Thanksgiving. I did something similar a few years ago for a month and I found it to be a very useful and nourishing daily practice for me. As I thought about it, I realized that I hear people using "thankful" and "grateful" pretty interchangeably. Discussing it with Grant, we decided that the difference between the two words was more about whether it involved another person or their actions (i.e. I am thankful to Gina for the baby clothes and gifts she bought Alchemy) where grateful could be for things not pertaining to a person but that I feel gratitude for (i.e. I am grateful for the rain we had yesterday that watered our garden so well). I am not sure if this is how it works for everyone else or what the proper definition of each is. I suppose if I was not in the car between cities and had Internet access I could look them up and be much more clear on it, but for now we will stick with my reasoning, although I suspect that I will still use them interchangeably as well.  I ponder all this and share it with you because I am considering taking up that practice again, but instead of just a month, trying to journal one thing I am grateful/thankful for a day. If it involves someone else, I may write a thank you card to go with it and mail it to them. What better day to start this practice than the day after Thanksgiving when I just came off of a week full of wonderful family time that I am so grateful for.