Thanksgiving can change with us
Thanksgiving has become a forever holiday in America. It endures wherever we are, whatever stage of life we're in.
Thanksgiving can change with us Thanksgiving has become a forever holiday in America. It endures wherever we are, whatever stage of life we're in. Check out this story on thecalifornian.com: http://bit.ly/1HoYAIp
Visalia Published 12:02 a.m. PT Nov. 26, 2015
I always thought of Thanksgiving as a "forever" holiday, something that endured from the time of the Pilgrims. But according to Rayna Green, a curator at the National Museum of American History, Thanksgiving started out as an impromptu gathering of Pilgrims and natives, to eat and hang out. All cultures understood what a good thing feasting was, so the First Thanksgiving participants brought what they had – game, fish, squash, cranberries – and gorged in peace.
The Pilgrims could officially give thanks to God, too, for not starving to death in the New World that year, thanks to the guidance of the American Indians who taught them to farm indigenous crops.
Though thanksgivings were celebrated after that, Thanksgiving wasn't declared a national holiday until President Lincoln made it so in 1863.
According to Green, the Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving became part of American mythology in the decades that followed, taught in schools as a matter of history – part of our national identity and being. In the fullness of time, Thanksgiving shed its religious aspects and became an established secular celebration of gratitude with family and friends. Venison and fish gave way to turkey, traditions came and went, and Thanksgiving has been morphing ever since.
Individually, nationally
And it should. Even today, we should reassess the where, what and how of Thanksgiving, individually and nationally. While the mythology has made Thanksgiving a steadfast national holiday, we need to ask ourselves: Is it time for a change in our celebrations and traditions, even for the holiday that seems cast in historical granite?
Two years ago, there was a big change for our family – a generational one. It was not a reassessment of the worthiness or grateful spirit of the holiday, but a change of venue and some traditions. I had staged Thanksgiving for upward of 40 years. Everyone flew or drove to our house, and I set the beautiful table with my best china, recreated the time-honored recipes for pie and stuffing and found just the right turkey.
But during those 40 years, I got old, and so did Thanksgiving.
The pies were the first to go. I easily gave up the time-consuming mess of rolling out my mother's impossible dough and composing her elaborate pie fillings. The perfect table setting was next. It gave way to the more informal buffet, first with china, then with decorative plastic plates. After a bad back injury, guests brought some of the food. Thanksgiving had become a potluck buffet supper. But Thanksgiving still started with a prayer, and it still was about gratitude for everything we have.
I was officially "retired" from Thanksgiving hostess two years ago when one daughter-in-law called me apologetically and suggested she stage the whole holiday at her house that year. She and my son were newlyweds, proud to have a home and a feast to invite their families to. Their time had come; mine was over.
Added to the feast
I accepted my fate with some pensive resignation.
Thanksgiving had always been my proud holiday. But I had begun to ask myself: Could I still do it anymore? I recalled how my mother and grandmother moved around so painfully during their last holidays, too. I wondered how they felt when the end of Thanksgiving came for them: Did they have a sense of relief or of remorse, as they were forced to acknowledge the relentless passage of time?
Perhaps they smiled, as I did.
There it was again, the beautiful table and the great feast along with a busy hostess and helpers, energetically intent on getting everything just right. Some new relatives, babies and friends were added to that family circle.
There were even some new holiday specialties added to the feast, reflecting the diversity of cuisine and people that had come to our table, as it had to the great American culture around us.
Thanksgiving has become a forever holiday in America, even if it didn't start that way. It endures wherever we are, whatever stage of life we're in. Once a year, no matter what, we stop and give thanks for what we have, what we are. It is a national holiday of gratitude – not for the crop that was just brought in, but for the good things we enjoy now, crops or not.
Imagine that: a holiday devoted to stopping and thinking about how lucky we are, wherever we are in our national history, during wars, recessions and tumultuous times along with those prosperous years of nice houses and growing bank accounts.
At least once a year, Americans can stop in their tracks, embrace their families and think: This is good, and we are lucky compared with the rest of the world.
Very lucky.
Alcestis "Cooky" Oberg, a freelance writer living in Houston, is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.
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