Redeeming Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. I love having the family all together. I love having significant others and best friends join us. I never cared much about the food, except the pumpkin pie, so over the years the traditional turkey dinner became the traditional Chinese takeout dinner. But we still have pumpkin pie. It’s a happy day.

In recent years, there has been more focus on the origins of Thanksgiving. Calling into question the traditional pilgrim narrative has soured many folks on the holiday, and understandably so. But also sadly so.

To me, Thanksgiving has always been less about a particular day in history and more about a time to focus on gratitude, to give thanks for whatever we are grateful for and in whatever way is meaningful to us. The roots of harvest celebrations span cultures and centuries. There is a literal harvest of the summer’s crops to assure survival through the winter. And there is a figurative harvest of blessings in our lives to sustain us through challenging times.

So while acknowledging and supporting a more honest account of our nation’s history, I still look forward to a day of celebrating gratitude. A day that doesn’t require anything more than being with people we love, grateful for another year of grace, and eating too much pumpkin pie.

In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy. ~David Steinal-Rast