Thanksgiving, the most American of holidays, is also the most unspoiled.
Americans may celebrate the Fourth of July with fireworks, but few reflect on the “self-evident truths” set forth in the Declaration of Independence or the “unalienable rights” brought to fruition 11 years later in that flawed but hope-filled document, the U.S. Constitution.
Memorial Day? Labor Day? Once devoted to honoring the dead of the Civil War and the struggles of working people, today they’re just three-day weekends signaling the start and end of the summer travel season.
As to Christmas, even the continuing bickering about an inclusive versus exclusive holiday season is drowned out by the overwhelming commercialism that profanes the tidings of comfort and joy piped into our overcrowded shopping malls.
But Thanksgiving 2007 remains much the same as it was at Berkeley Plantation in Virginia in 1619 and at Plymouth in Massachusetts in 1621. A day to gather with family and friends, to feast and give thanks for our blessings.
To grandmother’s house
It is one of the busiest travel times of the year, but most travelers are heading to and from family gatherings, not resorts. Other than food items destined for the communal meal, it is rare to give gifts on this holiday, unless it is food or money to charitable organizations that can help the homeless and destitute share in our common bounty for at least this one day.
That famous Norman Rockwell painting still captures the special quality of this day, as three generations gather around a family table while a grandmother lovingly places her painstakingly prepared turkey on the table. The faces in that painting, modeled after Rockwell’s own family, are white. But they retain a universal quality shared by African-American, Asian, Latino, American Indian, and mixed-race families in America’s ever-changing kaleidoscope.
There is nothing overtly religious about Rockwell’s classic and yet it embodies the spiritual and family bonds that have prompted Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and other faiths from time immemorial to gather together and give thanks for their blessings. Such expressions are often most poignant in the midst of hard times when the paucity of material blessings serves only to magnify the importance of family and friendship.
Not just Turkey Day
Thanksgiving’s spirit is so universal that it belies the callow label Turkey Day. A stroll through any health food outlet will uncover many meatless holiday meals deliciously prepared so that vegetarians and vegans can join in this communal feast.
This most family-oriented of holidays does not lend itself to a simple template, but there are still common themes that all Americans can share. In the process we can also reclaim some of the spirit of those other holidays that have been submerged beneath commercialism.
We do “hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” And for that, we give thanks on this special day.
We do acknowledge that the nation bequeathed us after our war of independence was terribly flawed by brave but hypocritical patriots who proclaimed their love of liberty while owning other people as slaves. But we also honor, as generations of orators once did on Memorial Day, the courage of the men and women who fought a great Civil War to lift the blight of slavery from our land, “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Those who came before us
And we give thanks to those like Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez, Samuel Gompers, Susan B. Anthony and countless others who kept the spirit of Abraham Lincoln alive to our present day.
The American nation, much like our individual families, is largely what we make it. For the courage of our forebears and the vision to carry on their work, we give thanks on this special day.
