Every year, we celebrate Thanksgiving as a time to count our blessings, spend time with family, eat our fill of a traditional feast, and watch a parade and football game while reclining with our pants unzipped—and it’s perfectly acceptable.
So from whence did this tradition come? Oh, I know it has something to do with the pilgrims docking at Plymouth Rock and starting new colonies in the New World, but what is the real, hard-core journalism on this? Well, Waterman is on the trail for serious Thanksgiving facts, after first giving thanks for Wikipedia.
During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated on the final Thursday in November 1863. His presidential successors followed suit each year until 1939, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt dared to be different. November had five Thursdays that year, and Roosevelt declared the fourth Thursday as Thanksgiving rather than the fifth one.
Why, you may ask? Because the country was in the depths of the Great Depression and Frankie D. felt that an early Thanksgiving would give merchants more time to sell, sell, sell for Christmas, thereby increasing profits and consumer spending. Boy, does this sound painfully familiar?
You can thank Lydia Maria Child for helping to make Thanksgiving a day for all God-fearing and family-guilt stricken Americans to make the long pilgrimage home to spend time with family, like them or not. In 1844 she wrote the charming American poem that begins with “Over the river and through the woods / to grandmother’s house we go.” Don’t even get me started on Norman Rockwell.
And the traditional feast? Well, the first Thanksgiving feast in 1621 wasn’t much to write home about. The pilgrims nearly starved to death, and were saved by the Wampanoag Indians, who showed those English turkeys what a pumpkin was for. The 1622 feast was much better and included lobster, seal, and swan. As for the football games, nearest I can figure is that whenever more than one guy congregates in a room with a TV in it, they are ready for some football.
There it is, my Cliff Notes version of Thanksgiving history. So, what have I to be thankful for? Many things, starting with the miracle of narcotics and an understanding editor. Wait—let me clarify that first part. I had my right knee replaced on Nov. 5, and am in considerable discomfort. A small amount of pain medication goes a long way for me, and that is why I am able to sit up and type this commentary. My editor, Ryan Miller, is an intelligent and understanding man with a heart of gold, a face like a moon pie (they are so good), and gentle brown eyes the likes of which I have seen only once before, and that was on the face of my grandmother’s favorite milk cow. God, I loved that cow. Ryan, I love you, too, man. Thanks for extending my deadline.
I am thankful for my family, especially my mother. This woman has taught me so many things, including how to prepare a Thanksgiving dinner. She passed me the torch the first time I made Thanksgiving dinner, but I forgot her caution about buying the bird a few days early to give it time to thaw. Even so, she graciously took my Thanksgiving Day call at 4 a.m. and gently talked me down from my panic. “Put the hair dryer away,” she said. “You can’t thaw a 23-pound turkey with a Conair. Fill the sink with water, submerge the bird, change the water every 20 minutes, and turn the bird each time. It should thaw out by noon.” As always, Mom was right, and she still makes the best corn bread stuffing in the world. Thanks, Mom.
I am thankful to have a Brit for a husband. He puts a whole new perspective on things I have always taken for granted—like Thanksgiving. “Bloody hell!” he erupts each year. “You make such a production out of a bunch of Puritans coming to this country. They had to,” he explained. “We were busy having a Restoration and kicked the buggers out. America was where we sent annoying people like murderers, rapists, pickpockets, and Puritans. What a boring lot, too!” he continued. “They dressed in black, didn’t wear jewelry, and hated sex. They were bringing us down, Love, so we sent them to America and you Yanks still haven’t gotten the joke!”
I am especially thankful to have a Mini-Brit for a grandson. He is also our son by adoption and always gets the drumstick off the turkey. He looks like a miniature Henry VIII as he sits regally, his drumstick in one hand, a forkful of mashed potatoes in the other, his laughing brown eyes peeking through the sunflower arrangement on the table. He and I are the only pumpkin pie lovers in the house, and he says mine is the best. The Brit hates pumpkin pie because it makes him “farty.” No argument there!
Our 12-year-old dog, Poppy, loves it all—and it all makes her farty. I’m telling you, we could solve the energy crisis if they could find a way to harness the gas that emanates out of this animal. I often worry if we will ever see another dawn. But I love her anyway, and I’m thankful for her warm, affectionate, tail-wagging, gassy presence.
I am very thankful that I live in a place as beautiful as the Central Coast, in a country as incredible as ours is. We have privileges, rights, and freedoms as Americans, the like and extent of which exist nowhere else on the planet. But remember: Privileges, rights, and freedoms come with responsibilities first. Too many people forget this and walk around in a self-entitled haze of selfishness. Fortunately, for us, there are so many more who walk with a selfless grace, and take on the responsibility to work and fight for those privileges, rights, and freedoms, even risking their lives. To those courageous people we owe our most heartfelt thanks.
Finally, I am especially thankful for you. Yeah, you, sitting there sipping your coffee and reading my words. Thank you, gentle readers, for allowing me to share my thoughts with you each month. You make sitting here at the computer at 5 a.m. worthwhile, and I raise my coffee cup to you all. Have a lovely and loving Thanksgiving and God bless!
Ariel Waterman is also thankful for coffee, chocolate, and peanut butter, without which she could not survive another deadline. Send care packages (no decaf, please) and share your thoughts via her editor, Ryan Miller, at rmiller@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 26 – Dec 3, 2009.
