A woman who is the first to celebrate gratitude, pop songbird Céline Marie Claudette Dion (1968-) was born in Charlemagne, Quebec, the youngest of 14 children.

"I seem to have been a good baby," Dion recalled. "I didn't cry too much and I quickly began sleeping nights. Of course, I had 15 people at my beck and call."

Nurtured with music, she recorded her first demo at 12 for music promoter Rene Angelil who was so deeply touched, he mortgaged his house to finance the recording of her debut album La Voix Du Bon Dieu (1980). The couple married in 1994.

It took 10 years, but she finally hit it big in America with the album Unison (1990), which featured her hit Where Does My Heart Beat Now. "It's the moment you think you can't that you realize you can," she once said.

As the most popular pop vocalist of the nineties, she released the self-titled Celine Dion (1992). The cd featured the smash hit Beauty and the Beast, a beautiful Oscar- and Grammy-winning duet with Peabo Bryson. She has sold 140 million albums over the last two decades.

Always protecting her incredible five-octave range voice, Dion does not drink or smoke. She speaks as little as possible when on tour or recording. Her 1998 ballad My Heart Will Go On from the film Titanic (1997, w/ Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet) was a monster hit and inspired Time magazine to call her a "global diva."

Céline in concert is stunning... talented, humble, and very endearing. She agreed to perform in concert exclusively at the Caesars Palace Colosseum in Las Vegas for three years beginning in 2003. By 2005, over a million concertgoers had flocked to the desert town to hear her sing.

With the gifts that Céline Dion shares with the world, we all have something to be grateful for.

Enjoy the simple things in life.