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Jenn Thornton
Danielle Accovelli
Abigail Stone
Wendy BowmanSo, Thanksgiving is upon us. For some, it’s just Turkey Day, our once-a-year chance to reconnect with family and friends. Friends like carbs, glutens, and dairy. For others, it marks the beginning of the holiday season, some Black Friday gift-shopping, or just a chance to spend a nostalgic day in the kitchen with loved ones while the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade or a pro football game plays in the background. But if I could, I’d like to take a moment to consider the actual meaning and origin of the holiday we call Thanksgiving.
As the legend goes, America’s earliest European settlers found this new continent challenging, and their first winter here was one of disease and deprivation. But Providence smiled down upon the Pilgrims when a group of Native Americans befriended them and taught them how to, for example, plant corn, using fish as fertilizer. With a successful harvest behind them the Pilgrims had enough food to get through the winter, and so declared a day of celebration and the giving of thanks. In time this became an annual tradition, so much so that in 1863 President Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November to be Thanksgiving Day, a national holiday.
In this era of self-help and self-actualization, certain buzzwords dominate the conversation as to how best to achieve a happy life. Among the most prominent is the word gratitude. There is a growing understanding that by regularly acknowledging and expressing gratitude for our blessings, instead of focusing on our troubles, we can find not just happiness but a kind of wisdom and serenity as well. Plus, a side effect of gratitude is a keener awareness of those less fortunate than ourselves, which fosters altruism and makes us better, more generous friends and neighbors.
For all of America’s faults and flaws, I think it speaks much to our national character that we’re one of just a handful of countries where the giving of thanks is an annual tradition and one of just two in which Thanksgiving is a national holiday. Every year, in good times and bad, we devote an entire day (or, it could be argued, a four-day weekend) to counting our blessings and offering up our thanks to God, Providence, or the Universe—take your pick. Here’s hoping that this spirit of gratitude can have as beneficial an effect on our country as it does for its individual citizens. Which, of course, would be something else to be thankful for.
As for me, I give thanks to my friend Ned Rice, a professional writer and cook extraordinaire, whose words inspired this note. Happy Holidays!
