Giving Thanks-giving to an eroding holiday

We share in a unique and secular American holiday. Thanksgiving is a day where all of us join with family and friends in what seems to be the embodiment of what Norman Rockwell painted in his Freedom from Want as part of the Four Freedoms series – loved ones, and occasionally despised at some circumstances, gathered around a table to say grace if needs be, speak for their thankfulness and dig into a gut busting meal of turkey and all the sides. 

The time has passed where tradition was simpatico with Thanksgiving. Every year since I was a little boy my family and I gathered at my Grandparents house in Lake Forest. The taller we Grandchildren grew, the smaller the walls became and the more often we moseyed around that cramped space by the table in the basement to get another serving. With age my Grandmother became too tired to accomplish such a massive culinary undertaking. Even before my Grandfather passed away we shared the duties of Thanksgiving between my Mom and Dad’s house and my Aunt Carol and Uncle Terry’s. As we hopefully evolve in life, so do slight changes to tradition. The Thanksgiving I spent in Ireland was unique in many ways being away from family. I and other American friends wished to take some stateside tradition to Limerick and share with our foreign buddies. Around low tables we shared far too much wine, potatoes (in Ireland – get out!) and turkey, eventually falling into a coma of a slumber. 

This year I am spending Thanksgiving at Aunt Beverly’s house, Ally’s oldest aunt. The exchange is to spending Thanksgiving with her family and Christmas with mine.  Though as I have grown to become more of what my Department Chair at Harper called a ‘secular humanist’, even the religious insignificance to me of Christmas was replaced by the joy of the holiday season.

What I do not appreciate is creeping capitalism of what was once a religious Christmas making its way into the secular Thanksgiving. We as American’s have bought into the invasion of a national holiday created by President Roosevelt in 1943 to be shared by us all, not a specific group for their significant religious holidays. Why can Thanksgiving be usurped by early black Friday door busters of 8pm and 10pm at major chain stores nationwide? If Christmas was invaded in such a manner, would there be an uproar or silence with the knowledge “that’s the way things go!” I wonder if we spent as much time stimulating the mall and the corporate chain beast as we do with what are better paying jobs with lasting results in manufacturing, education and infrastructure, would we be the country that returns to the table instead of in lines at the wee hours of the morning? Values lay where we spend our money. There is no shame in buying that Smartphone or designer shirt but at what cost to tradition? 

I am thankful and fortunate for many things in my life and proactive for future endeavors as many of us are. This Thanksgiving as the tryptophan from that succulent dark and white turkey breast kicks in and mingles with the wine and cranberry sauce, I will sit back with an arm around a loved one, watching football and perhaps sneaking in a nap– a change, yes, but tradition remains. 

Freedom from Want - Norman Rockwell