When people are enjoying a Thanksgiving feast, it’s sometimes hard to know when to say “enough is enough.”

We may be stuffed, but the food is so tempting and guests don’t want to disappoint a hostess who has worked hard to prepare a sumptuous dinner. Just a little more won’t hurt. It’s more than we need, but it’s the holidays.

As we move into the holiday season, however, those who have the means to indulge themselves and their families might consider rethinking their spending habits. What if we took all or part of that money and used it to help some people who are less fortunate, people who may be simply scraping by, wondering how they are going to pay for the heat or buy food for a holiday dinner.

Wouldn’t that truly reflect the spirit of the season?

In the current sagging economy, more than the usual number of people are struggling. Some of us are dismayed by our shrinking investments or retirement accounts, but for others, the economy may have meant cutbacks or the loss of a job. We’ve had some reprieve from high gasoline prices, but, although gasoline prices were blamed for higher prices across the board, we haven’t seen the reductions we would hope for in the price of food and other goods. Officials of the local natural gas utility say rate increases won’t be as high as they had feared, but they still are expected to rise by 10 percent to 15 percent this winter.

For many people, it’s next to impossible to afford the essentials, let alone the frills that many of us enjoy at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Some of us have everything we need or maybe far more than we need. Taking at least a year off from extravagant holiday spending for family and friends would hardly be noticed. We want our local retailers to have a strong holiday season, but what if, instead of spending more on ourselves, we gave some of that money to other people to spend on things they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford?

Maybe this is the year to say “enough is enough, we don’t need any more.” Doing less for ourselves and more for others would be a great way to spread the true spirit of the holiday.