Thanksgiving Day - The Forgotten Holiday

Back to school sales turn into Halloween offerings by the first of September; and a week or two later Christmas decorations are draped all over the stores. Right now, I won't go into the crazy-making custom of ensuring that consumers have to buy Halloween costumes and decorations a month in advance. What if I wanted to wait until the temperature was under 80 degrees? No, what I noticed most was the skip right over the witches, black cats, scarecrows and pirate costumes to angels, snow, Santa, and red-and-gold galore.

No Thanksgiving Day turkeys. No sober little Pilgrim boy with big buckles on his shoes or demure little Pilgrim girl in her white cap. No little American Indian person holding out ears of corn presumably to the European settlers. No cranberries, even.

Thanksgiving Day is just about a forgotten holiday. If it wasn't for football, maybe no one would celebrate Thanksgiving Day at all, as long as we still got the long weekend. Since 1956, the fourth Thursday in November has uniformly been celebrated as Thanksgiving Day in the United States. It's our holiday as much as Independence Day on the Fourth of July.

I know there are problems with the traditional Thanksgiving Day. The white Europeans came over and ran off the Native Americans, or gave them diseases, or introduced them to the fatal fire water. Thanksgiving Day as it is traditionally viewed has a one-sided look and its not the happy little celebration with the red man and white man happily planning a menu that included some native delicacies like popcorn, turkey, cranberry sauce, cornbread stuffing, and pumpkin pie. That makes celebrating Thanksgiving Day feel a little embarrassing and old-fashioned.

And what about the turkey? Most of us still eat meat. But the symbol of Thanksgiving Day traditionally has always been the turkey, complete with his tail feathers and wattles, strutting around saying "Gobble, gobble." Nowadays we are a little embarrassed to eat meat, and even more embarrassed when we admit our meat actually once had feathers and walked around and made noises. So that Thanksgiving Day staple falls by the wayside too.

My mom would be appalled. Thanksgiving Day was her holiday. She didn't care if we missed coming home for Christmas, but we all knew we had better not fail to show up for Thanksgiving Day. She could put on a spread, too, rivaled only by old-fashioned books such as Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Farmer Boy". We started with turkey and ham; stuffing complete with oysters; mashed potatoes; noodles in chicken broth; cranberry sauce and cranberry salad; an obligatory vegetable or two; six kinds of pies; chocolate brownies and chocolate fudge; all of it homemade.

So, it's time to make Thanksgiving Day respectable again. Forget all the Pilgrims and Indians stuff. Thanksgiving Day was traditionally just that, a day of giving thanks and spending time with family. During the 18th and 19th century, New Englanders traveled long distances to spend a weekend with their relatives eating the last of the summer harvest and visiting. They didn't play football then, but if Thanksgiving Day football had been around, they would have watched it. That was it: just a bunch of hardy farmers getting together and enjoying themselves.

Or if we want to celebrate our Native American ancestor's traditions, we could celebrate Thanksgiving Day as many of them did. Many Native American cultures had some version of the "potlatch": a give-away ceremony. This Thanksgiving Day ceremony was called Nickommo by the Wampanoag, the original Native American tribe of the New England area. People got together for a good time of eating, dancing, and giving away as much of their stuff as they could. Maybe that's why my mom always put on such a good spread at Thanksgiving.

Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind if the retailers would start that particular tradition for Thanksgiving Day. But I'd be happy if they'd just start acknowledging Thanksgiving Day again. And not just as "big football weekend."