Thanksgiving is one of the best holidays for a number of reasons.
One, the food is yummy comfort food. The core of the meal is the same every year: turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, dinner rolls, pumpkin pie with whipped cream topping. Stuffing or dressing are within the cannon, but I hate it, so if it is up to me, I leave it out. Yes, there are other standard variations.
My daughter-in-law’s family, for example, always has macaroni and cheese, which seemed outlandish to me until I realized about half the country considers mac and cheese a Thanksgiving staple. The main thing for me is that I pretty much only eat this menu at Thanksgiving. (Macaroni and cheese I eat at least monthly.) My son-in-law Ben took the opportunity to teach the oldest boys how to carve the turkey. My seven-year-old granddaughter, with coaching from her mom, was proud to bake her first pumpkin pie. (Delicious!)
Second, the holiday brings up the notion of gratitude. We go around the table over dessert and share what we are grateful for. This year in addition to family and friends, plumbing topped the list.
Third, Thanksgiving is an All-American national holiday, observed throughout the country. You don’t have to be a particular religion to participate.Thanksgiving is more like the 4th of July than Christmas as national holidays go. There has been pushback lately against the mythologizing of the occasion when the Native people's generosity to the Pilgrims (European colonizers). That the colonizers basically visited genocide on Native peoples across the continent is a disturbing irony. Since I am descended through my father’s side from one of those very colonizers who managed to survive that first devastating winter (the Brewer family), I am unsettled.There is something to be said for acknowledging and celebrating small incidents of goodness. My husband, whose grandfather was Comanche, loved Thanksgiving, so I try to focus on the family tradition and the feasting rather than historic injustices. For one day.
Fourth, Thanksgiving is a holiday not only for families to gather, which seems to happen less frequently than in my grandparents’ day, but is the opportunity to welcome people into the family.
These last few years during the pandemic these gatherings weren't possible. The guests this year at my daughter's were two widowed grandmas, a work friend of my daughter, one teenage exchange student from Madrid, and the junior high girlfriend of my oldest grandson.It was lovely.
And my grandchildren got to experience the iconic “Kids’ table” in the kitchen. My other daughter Abi and her wife were off visiting friends in Utah, which was a “missing” for me, but after all, they are grown-ups.
Lastly, Thanksgiving gives us a moment to breathe in the fragrance of peace before the hectic Christmas Season begins. (This is technically known as Advent within traditional Christian churches, but these days even Advent calendars are marketed as Christmas Countdown Calendars.) The fall wreath came off my door tonight, and the artificial pine wreath is up.
Usually, the Saturday after Thanksgiving is when my Christmas tree goes up, but since I’m heading for Panama this weekend, that remains for December.
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