Thanks Giving

Thanksgiving should be the biggest and most important holiday of the year. We got it all wrong when we put Christmas at the head of the holiday food chain. And I won’t hear anything about it being the celebration of Christ’s birth; it ceased to be any religious celebration long ago, and it’s questionable if it every really was. Jesus Christ was born in springtime; that much is clear from the biblical accounts (yes, I know it’s actually April 6, but we’re talking about mainstream Christianity here). The only reason Christmas is celebrated in December is because it was convenient for people who were used to pagan celebrations around the winter solstice. Besides, there is very little Christ in Christmas anymore. Heck, people call it X-mas sometimes in a conscious effort to remove all religiosity. The only religion Christmas adheres to is the worship of consumerism and consumerism.

No, Christmas shouldn’t be King of the Calendar. It should be Thanksgiving. Can you think of a better holiday? It has marvelous historical significance that is important to everyone in this country, regardless of faith, race, or creed. It is based on a genuine ideal that is sorely lacking in modern America: gratitude. We’d all be better people if we did a little more thanking and a little less whining. (The irony of that statement nestled in a whiny blog entry is not lost on my, by the way.) Thanksgiving is about family; more people are together as a family on Thanksgiving than any other holiday, including Christmas and New Year’s. Thanksgiving is about eating—can it get much better than that? This year we spent two and a half days preparing for one meal that lasted 45 short but glorious minutes. We then spend the rest of the day washing the dishes and hand-washing the china. Maybe it’s a waste of time, but I challenge you to sit down to a full table of turkey, stuffing, smashed potatoes, gravy, yams, etc. and think to yourself, “This isn’t worth the effort.” It’s all worthwhile in the end.

I’m sure as the Christmas season gets into full swing I’ll get into the spirit of Christmas, but I’m still 10 pounds heavier than I was last weak and relishing the thought of stuffing my face around that full table. My mother-in-law and my wife’s aunt did a little FHE lesson last Monday about the first Thanksgiving. They gave us all 5 kernels of corn and told us the legend about how the Pilgrims placed 5 kernels of corn next to their plates on the first Thanksgiving. There are two possible reasons why the did this: the first is that their rations got so low during the previous winter that for a while they only had 5 kernels of corn to eat per person each day; the second story is that their grain wouldn’t grow but they found a sack of Indian corn and there were 5 kernels of corn for each person to plant. (Fortunately for us, we don’t need specifics to enjoy historical lessons.) So at Thanksgiving Dinner we all had five kernels of corn next to our plates and we said five things we were thankful for. Some of the reasons were classic (family, food, shelter), some of them were funny (video games, flush toilets), and some kids couldn’t even think of anything (ungrateful wretches!). But it was a fun way to start our eat-a-thon. Which reminds me, Spike TV had a Bond-a-thon all weekend long with dozens of James Bond movies. One more thing to be thankful for.