As you--designers and the people who love them--prepare to sit down (in all manner of interesting chairs) to Thanksgiving dinner, during which you'll again struggle to explain to family and friends exactly what it is that you do, we got to thinking what we're thankful for this year. All it took was a look through some recent posts to remind us. Below, a non-exhaustive list:

Films projected onto the sides of buildings. We can't wait for the South Beachified version of Doug Aitken's "Sleepwalkers" (now with salsa!), which will be projected on the new Herzog & de Meuron-designed Miami Art Museum building (alas, we'll have to wait 'til the building's done, in 2011).

Helvetica. The font, the film, the cult, and the Mexican version.

One week in October. That we devoted to Steven Heller. We're still working on the commemorative peacoats.

Marc Newson's ability to effectively combine the aesthetics of NASA, surf culture, Ron Arad, and the go-go utopian vibe of early air travel without making it look stale.

The world's ongoing love/hate relationship with PowerPoint. Hey, it helped win an Al Gore an Oscar, which is more than CorelDRAW can say.

Michael Bierut and his short essays on design. Yup, all 79 of them.

Subliminal home furnishings. Does this mean health insurance companies could one day reimburse us for all the money we've spent on Alexander Girard's "Fruit Tree" fabric?

The enduring popularity of Legos. And the fact that people can make their living out of building things with them or simply by publishing magazines about it.

The quirkily threadbare yet broad-thinking empire of Dave Eggers and his chums at McSweeney's and 826 Valencia. Yesterday, it was announced that Eggers is among the 2008 TED Prize winners. We can't to hear what he'll do with the $100K.

Eerily beautiful paintings of German fighter jets.

Tim Gunn. Instead of going for that fourth slice of pie tonight, tune in to Bravo for a new episode of Tim's reality show, which promises a guest appearance by the delightful Isaac Mizrahi (someone else we're thankful for).

We could go on forever, but we've got to go construct plastic covers for the Gehry Wiggle chairs that encircle our dining table. Cranberry sauce is a real nightmare to get out of corrugated cardboard. Happy Thanksgiving!