Traditions to be thankful for

Much of the holiday season is made up of rituals. Each family has their own unique rituals that carry them through the cooking, baking, gift giving and decorating. Yet there is one aspect of the holiday season that is ubiquitous across America, the Thanksgiving dinner. One night of the year all of America sits down to the same meal, with only slight variations. The food has become a nationwide ritual that is the fulcrum to the holiday itself.

Compared to Christmas, or even Halloween, the Thanksgiving we know is a fairly new tradition. Our ancestors brought with them remnants of harvest festivals they surely celebrated in their own country, giving thanks for a good crop of food to last them through the winter. And although we all know the tale of the first Thanksgiving feast between the Pilgrims and the Indians, the modern day holiday that we celebrate in such continuity was only solidified as a national holiday during the Civil War, and settled on its current date in 1941 by President Roosevelt. Regardless of its origins and relative newness, Thanksgiving is ingrained into modern life and many, myself included, find it one of the most enjoyable holidays.

The very word gives us direction into how to celebrate the day. Give thanks. Simple and clear. Find something in your life, no matter the situation, and be glad for it. Most people spend the day celebrating family and nourishment in some form. For family doesn’t always have to be a unit in the traditional sense. At dinner tables across the country people will be sitting down to celebrate the families that they have made in addition to the families they were given. Family can be a loosely defined word. How many people in your life can you be thankful for, blood relative or not? The list may be short, but I bet it is fiercely cherished.

One year, my family decided to chuck the traditional celebration of cooking, football and turkey-induced comas and decided to spend the long weekend in New York City. Although the Thanksgiving Day we celebrated that year was in itself a nontraditional celebration, our ritual activities were in fact the embodiment of the Thanksgiving holiday. We braved the freezing streets and watched the larger-than-life balloons float past during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. (Infinitely better in person than on TV, I might add.) We saw the Rockettes fling their symmetrically long legs high in the air during their annual Christmas Spectacular. We saw the tree in Rockefeller Center in all its twinkling glory. We didn’t see much football that year, and the turkey and stuffing wasn’t as good in a restaurant as it is in my mother’s kitchen. But every year when I see the parade on TV, I get a little tingle and remember what it was like as a teenager to stand there with my family, and I’m glad for nontraditional celebrations.

There is one ritual that we did observe that year, along with everyone else. At the very end of the Thanksgiving Parade, the marching bands’ music had faded around the next corner, and the balloons had long drifted off into lower Manhattan (or out of the TV screen). Anticipation for what awaited at the end of the parade built. Then finally, at long last, Santa in all his red velvet finery appeared in his magnificent sleigh. And at that, with the appearance of one float, the Christmas season arrived. Something more to be thankful for on this day of giving thanks.

Previously published in "The Star," Grand Coulee, Washington. November 16, 2011