Thanksgiving

The origins of holidays should never be examined too carefully. Like poor Thanksgiving. A few years ago Jo's brother Erik taught his son to say something along these lines at pre-school for Thanksgiving: "And then the pilgrims ate a feast with the Native Americans and said thanks and then they killed them." Last week Jen made a similar comment. I decided to poke around on the internet to set the record straight for Vivian and Evan. And for my dad who asked what all the fuss was about. Here's a mishmash of what I found. I never left my armchair to do this research and you shouldn't believe everything you see on the internet.

In the mid 1800's the US started formalizing school education. Text books needed to be written. They couldn't possibly start the history of a proud young nation by saying that the early settlers enslaved the  locals. Someone found a letter from 1622 that mentioned the harvest festival. A bit of revisionist photoshopping added the phrase "thanks giving feast" in a post script to the old letter. The practice of giving thanks back then was a quiet and serious business that took place in churches. The harvest festival was the ultimate locavore feast of the day. Bam - they were combined in search of a textbook tradition that didn't exist.

The lady who penned "Mary had a little lamb" was also the editor of the largest selling women's magazine of the day. She was a crusader for Thanksgiving and pushed it in her magazine and wrote to state governors asking them to make it a holiday. Soon after that, during the civil war, Lincoln was casting around for a unifying national holiday. In 1863 when Thanksgiving became the third American national holiday it finally pulled together the three different notions: giving thanks, feasting, and a day of holiday.

Eating bland turkey came a good bit later. Today there is a news item about Turkey asking for Patriot missiles to defend against Syria. It is sure to cause some confusion in certain circles.

Last week Evan had his Thanksgiving lunch at Grace. It was so well attended that I had to help Kym get more tables and chairs to seat the guests. Neighbor Ava participated in a sweet little song with traditional pilgrim/Indian (feather not dot) headgear. I gave Evan a hug and managed to escape for soccer before they started praying.

On Tuesday Vivian had her school Thanksgiving lunch. There were so many people it was difficult to move around. The kids made turkey crafts out of paper and glue. There were kids whose parents couldn't be there. They didn't look very happy. I'm glad parents in my day didn't have to come to school on a regular basis.

Vivian walked up to her teacher to show off her turkey and Jo overheard Vivian say "Ms. Carmen, mira". That is the first instance of Vivian spontaneously speaking in Spanish. We were thrilled. All it took was one word that wasn't "adios". Magellan has earned their next two months of tuition. I took a picture of the kids playing together before I escaped for soccer.

This year while other families are getting together for the bland turkey, we split. Jo and the kids are enjoying the Great Outdoors at Goliad State Park with Nicolle and Greta. Here are a couple of photographs.

My dad and I stayed at home and are getting caught up on making and doing laundry. Yesterday I was invited to a very nice thanksgiving feast at a friend's. And I went for a nice long hike in the hill country and took some photos with my phone.

Next year I would like to make a minor change - be more thankful every day of the year. Happy Thanksgiving to you all.