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Thanksgiving
in America is held every fourth Thursday in November, and is the best
of all the holidays that gather families and friends around a common celebration.
Personalities aside, this is one holiday
that is a no-pressure deal.
Nobody gets gifts or is expected to do more
than show up, eat, drink and refrain from getting too overserved so that
you don’t get into a mix with old Uncle Al, or that other occasional
family member that you just can’t stand.
The occasion was created as a national day
of thanks around a special meal, as (reportedly) the first Pilgrims had
on November 11, 1621, one year after landing at a place called Plymouth,
Massachusetts.
Thanksgiving is now known in more modern
terms for the big parade in Manhattan, New York, and other special television
sporting events, especially American football, which is usually not broadcast
on any other daytime Thursday otherwise.
But the thing about Thanksgiving is that,
no matter where you are from, Thanksgiving is an American thing to do.
So in every corner of this great land, from
California to the New York islands, on up into Alaska and down to Key
West, Florida, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and agnostics, whites,
blacks, and every color in between, all put down their differences for
a day and agree that traditions of love, family, and good food are the
order of the day.
In America, when you say “Happy Thanksgiving"
nobody looks back and says, “That’s not my holiday.”
Already, people are revving up for the next
holiday—newspapers and shopping channels on TV are full of ads for
Christmas.
But beautiful Thanksgiving will have none
of that.
In fact most stores that sell turkeys, the
traditional meal of the day in America, are either giving them away or
offering the feast birds at or below cost.
Not a good day for turkeys, to be sure.
But if memory serves, when I lived on the
farm, turkeys were the dumbest animals imaginable.
Anytime it rained would scurry to get them
inside, and some of them would look up and drown!
So here’s to Thanksgiving: a day of
peace, quiet, and reconciliation.
Air Cargo has done its part delivering meals
to the U.S. troops still stuck overseas, and we can all be thankful to
air cargo for that.
Some Americans pass the feeling along by
working for a day serving meals in a Salvation Army kitchen or delivering
food to the needy.
But it is the small and mostly unreported
concern toward each other, reflected in small gifts of food and open invitations
of welcome to others, that should be recognized as an important expression
of Thanksgiving.
Individual acts of kindness have always
been the spirit of Thanksgiving, as we gather friends and family at the
table, hold hands, and sing:
“We
gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing:
He
chastens and hastens his will to make known.
The
wicked oppressing
Cease
them from distressing
Sing
praises to his name
He
forgets not his own.”
Hooray for the pumpkin pie!
Geoffrey
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Vol.
17 No. 76
100%
Green