Thanksgiving

Someone smashed my granddaughter’s pumpkin.  It was hard to get a five-year-old to wrap her mind around such atrocity, but it was my job to buy her a new pumpkin, and on the day before Halloween there was none to be found.  A farm stand and two garden centers had closed for the season.  The display of pumpkins in front of Shaw’s was gone, and Wal-Mart was sold out.

Had I wanted Christmas decorations, they were available.  I hope to eventually be possessed by the Christmas spirit, but not yet.  I love Christmas, but I can’t sustain it for two months.  I remarked to Annette that it wouldn’t be long before radio stations would be playing carols twenty-four/ seven. 

Nothing could make me hate “Away in a Manger” and “Silent Night” except constant repetition.  One year the building that housed my office had an outdoor speaker near the window that broadcast a short tape of music that featured “It’s a Holly-Jolly Christmas.”  I hate the song to this day.  I like Burl Ives just fine, and the song has a cheerful lilt that I wouldn’t find objectionable if I hadn’t been driven crazy by it when I was trying to get some work done. 

I make it a point to avoid listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving.  If I can’t get away from it I employ a technique perfected by eastern holy men for spiritual peace amid the clamor of the world, which involves slow breathing from the diaphragm and the holy syllable ooom.

Besides wanting to appreciate Christmas when the time arrives, I want to anticipate Thanksgiving.  It’s a holiday that has much to recommend it.  For one thing, it cannot be over-commercialized. 

Oh they try.  Supermarkets have specials on turkeys, and it’s a big season for Ocean Spray and One-Pie canned pumpkin.  Turnips, which never top the charts, make a brave showing, and for reasons that escape me, stores  sell a lot of canned fried onions to go on top of green beans.  There are Thanksgiving cards, but not everybody sends them.

Thanksgiving music is the kind you sing in church.  If “Come Ye Thankful People, Come” has been recorded, I don’t know by whom. I do get out my Godspell CD and listen to “I Really Wanna Thank You, Lord,” which I guess is the Thanksgiving equivalent of “It’s a Holly-Jolly Christmas,” but I don’t play it more than twice. 

Restaurants do a big business, but Thanksgiving dinner is still very much a homemade meal.  People who seldom cook consult the Turkey Hotline to find out what to do if they left the giblet bag in the bird.  Guests bring their specialties, and many recipes have been passed down.  There’s no great spending orgy, which I suppose is why the media tries to get you to move on to Christmas before the trick-or-treat candy is gone. 

Christmas tells the story of the birth of Christ, but it’s also a celebration of winter. It’s a time for Santa Claus ritual and lore, a season of partying that exceeds the home-cooked family meal, and of course there’s the retail consumption that fuels our economy for the entire year.     

Thanksgiving has a more unified theme.  We count our blessings, feast on plenty, and give thanks.  We look to our past.  “All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin,” we sing in church.  We’re no longer a rural, agrarian society but we think of our roots even as we sprinkle Kraft mini-marshmallows on our yams.  And we honor those great mythical figures, the Pilgrims.  Don’t confuse us with history; they stand for our origins and tell us who we are, or at least who we’d like to be. 

I won’t give this up.  Thankfulness – an attitude of gratitude – saves us from bitterness in a world of trouble. Being mindful of our blessings cleanses avarice, envy, and anger from our hearts. Entering a home filled with the steamy fragrance of the cooking of a holiday meal is an experience we must never lose.  Believing there are heroes in our past gives us direction for the future. I turn my head from Christmas until all this has been accomplished.