Thanksgiving is about food, family, football and friends, not necessarily in that order. Most of us are thankful for mundane things; our family, health, home, job, friends and the like. For some people they are thankful they cheated Death in combat or in a battle with cancer or perhaps in a close call involving the wrath of Mother Nature. Many people aren’t truly thankful about anything at all, they just want to eat and then pass out in front of the television.
The first Thanksgiving was about being grateful for living. Of the original 102 Pilgrims only 53 survived. They wanted to celebrate their good fortune in making it through a harsh winter, surviving disease, outlasting crop failure and overcoming general hopelessness during dark times. The Pilgrims had met an English speaking Pawtuxet Indian named Squanto who saved them by teaching them how to plant corn, squash and beans. That farming success, coupled with the natural bounty of the land along with their faith in God gave the Pilgrims hope for the coming year and for that they saw fit to give thanks.
The Separatists that settled Plymouth, Massachusetts were a dour lot. They didn’t party at all and didn’t even celebrate Christmas viewing the frivolity that accompanied its observance as too “pagan”. However, “thanks be to God” was another thing entirely and the five lone women who had survived prepared the banquet for the 48 white males and the 90 Wampanoag who attended the first Thanksgiving.
Perhaps beginning the tradition of “what can I bring?” the Wampanoag brought five deer to the feast to compliment the turkey, geese, codfish and lobster that were already on the menu. Absent from the first thanksgiving were pumpkin pie (the Pilgrims had no to ovens to bake with) and forks; utensils considered so pretentious they were only used by the most snooty and least godly among us. The tradition of the “kiddie table” dates to the 19th Century; before that children stood while the adults were seated during dinner.
Since Thanksgiving was originally about giving God thanks and not really about food or football it took place on a Thursday because that was the traditional day of the mid-week church service in early America. Football was first played on Thanksgiving in Philadelphia in 1869. The NFL played its first Thanksgiving game on November 25, 1920. The Detroit Lions have played on Thanksgiving since 1934. Their owner started the tradition to make more money on stadium admissions and concessions.
Speaking of revenue, Thanksgiving is the least commercialized of all our celebrations but it used to be the starting gun for the beginning of holiday gift buying. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade began as the Macy’s Christmas Parade on Thanksgiving in 1924 as a way to kick start the Christmas shopping season. Presidents from George Washington on have declared a “Day of Thanksgiving” but it was Abraham Lincoln who made it a national holiday after a vigorous campaign by Sarah Josepha Hale, the woman who also penned the nursery rhyme “Mary Had A Little Lamb”. She had been working for years for a designated annual Thanksgiving Dayholiday. Ironically, it wasn’t observed in the South initially. That’s because it was thought to be a “Yankee” celebrationby the former Confederate States. The tradition of “pardoning” a turkey by the president was made official during the presidency of George H. W. Bush although the practice dates informally back further than that. Presidents were gifted many things, turkey’s among them. It is said that President John F. Kennedy pardoned the turkeys given to him under the mantra of “I don’t eat food I’ve met personally.” Pardoned turkeys go to a farm to live out their days free from the threat of gracing someone’s Thanksgiving table.
There is so much separating us as Americans this Thanksgiving. We seem incapable of discussing our differences with each other without rancor or even violence. Those of the opposite party aren’t patriotic Americans with a different outlook on life but rather traitors deserving of death. Elections aren’t fair anymore unless your candidates win every time. Put all that aside this Thanksgiving and make room for family of all political persuasions and opinions – including that cantankerous relative who gets on your nerves, it’s only for an afternoon. After all, as Robert Frost said, “Home is where, when you go there, they have to take you in.”