Thanksgiving Reflections

You wouldn’t know it, but I love Thanksgiving.  It’s my favorite holiday, for a few reasons.  I realize that it is December 1^st and with the change in the month it is now ok for Christmas to be the next big thing.  In my head it’s not December yet.  So let me tell you a little about Thanksgiving before you move on in your festivities. 

When a family or a group of friends gather on Thanksgiving, they bring food.  And although food can be a present, there is no pressure to find and bring a gift.  In many ways it is the holiday where you can come as you are.  One’s presence is what makes the difference.  One’s presence is the gift. 

When we want to make someone comfortable, we offer them food or drink.  Food, nourishment of the body, brings people together.  Everyone needs food, it is required, a necessity.  And so, besides the gluttony title that this holiday has taken on, it is the perfect combination of bringing people together, satisfying a natural need, and setting the table for relationships to form.

It is incredible that the United States has a day where things are {supposed to be} closed and the whole nation gives thanks.  We as a people do not realize the amazing things and opportunities we’ve been blessed with.  I know that we don’t all have the same privileges available to us, but we have so much.  It is refreshing to know that there is a time where I am forced to say I am blessed, I am loved, and I have much.

The final reason why I treasure this holiday has to do with heritage.  My ethnic heritage is ummm, well… I’m a Western European mix {look to the right for exhibit A}.  When people talk about traditions that have ethnic or cultural roots, I’m at a loss.  Thanksgiving is my heritage.  I had an ancestor that came over on the Mayflower.  When I say I’ve been here too long that the handed down traditions have faded, it’s true.  {Another side of my family came over in the mid 1700s.  Yep, I’ve been in this country for a long time.}

I am so thankful for this legacy.  It means that traditions are made by my family and shaped by the things that we hold dear.  The traditions aren’t something that has to be kept, but rather they are things that are formed through the making of memories.