I sometimes hear people refer to Thanksgiving as an “American” holiday and celebration. The reality is, cultures throughout history have held celebrations of thanksgiving. Just because their government didn’t declare a specific day for the celebration doesn’t exclude them. Countries such as Saint Lucia and Liberia have official thanksgiving days and even Brazil and Germany have unofficial celebrations. It’s a little odd to me that in a country that has been blessed the way the United States has, we need the government to declare a day of thanks. Non-the-less, in 1941 Congress designated a uniform date for celebrating “Thanksgiving.” The reality is, in our country designating a day for giving thanks dates back to 1579. Various accounts credit the actual beginning of the celebration as we now know it in locations as random as St. Augustine, Florida to Plymouth County Massachusetts to Jamestown, Virginia and points in between. Thinking back to first grade, the celebration of Thanksgiving was portrayed as a gathering of Pilgrims and Native Americans in Plymouth, Massachusetts. No matter where it started or who started it, Thanksgiving was a day of giving thanks to God for His providence and provision.
Growing up, Thanksgiving was the gateway to Christmas. Every red blooded kid knew, Christmas was usually 4 short weeks after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving also presented the first holiday break of the fall. We didn’t have “fall break” like schools now have. Once school started, usually the Tuesday after Labor Day, it continued without break until the four day Thanksgiving weekend. It made fall seem really long and both the teachers and kids were getting a little antsy by the time Thanksgiving came around. In the week before the holiday we would start putting up decorations – things like turkey pictures, pictures of Pilgrims with Native Americans and cornucopias. For some reason folks thought the cornucopia fit in with Thanksgiving Day. Schools would serve a “Thanksgiving lunch,” on Wednesday – the day before actual Thanksgiving Day. That lunch consisted of a slice of something that looked like turkey, had the flavor of a hockey puck and was drowned in a watery brown gravy. It was accompanied by powdered mashed potatoes, they had the consistency of wall paper paste and again no flavor and some peas. Hard to believe but the peas were the only thing that had flavor, even though they were mushy and pretty awful. The final piece of this celebratory lunch was a sliver or yellow pumpkin pie. It tasted more like month old Hummus than pumpkin. And now, people want their kids to have “free school lunches?” Anyone who had to choke down that Thanksgiving lunch surely wouldn’t, on purpose, force their kids to eat school lunches!
The first few Thanksgivings I remember started with a full breakfast. My Dad might have a bloody Mary or two while he made scrambled eggs, bacon and hash browns. He would dot his plate of scrambled eggs with Tabasco sauce. I thought if it was good for him it would be good for me and to this day I have a hard time eating scrambled eggs without a good sprinkling of Tabasco. After we finished eating and washing the dishes (my mom didn’t have a dishwasher until I was in high school) Dad would settle into his lounge chair and the rest of us would gather around the TV to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. We didn’t have a color TV. Ours was an old, cabinet style, semi-square screen, black and white. It was in a wood cabinet and since Dad wouldn’t spring for a new color TV my Mom got the idea that she should spruce up the old set by “antiquing” the wood. It turned out red with what looked to be black scratch marks through the paint. The thing was hideously ugly. It had “rabbit ears”, a top mounted antenna that was connected to the back of the TV with a brown wire. The rabbit ears had to be adjusted just right for the TV to get the best reception. Once those ears were set, heaven forbid anyone touch them lest the wrath of Dad would rein down on everyone.
Part of the ritual leading up to the big day involved my Dad taking all the vacuum tubes out of the TV and taking them to the local Rexall Drug Store where they had a “tube tester.” One by one he would fit the tubes into the matching socket on the tester and wait for it to warm up so the little meter could tell us its condition. If the meter showed it was getting weak, it was replaced with a new one that was fetched from a cabinet behind the drugstore counter. Heaven forbid a tube would go out during the parade broadcast or worse yet, during the Dallas Cowboys football game that was played in The Cotton Bowl after everyone had gorged themselves on the big Thanksgiving meal. Of course Dad would forget to make note of where each tube went on the board in the TV so things were always pretty tense until he experimented placing the tubes where he thought they should go and turning on the TV to see if it worked. If it didn’t, the trial and error game started all over again until finally the tubes were in the right place. It was the reason he would start the ritual a couple of days before the holiday because it might take that long to get the set working again. There were no YouTube “how to” videos to refer to!
Cooking a turkey back then became a little of a science project. One of the big turkey producers came up with this little device that was inserted in the birds breast and was supposed to pop up like a little red thermometer when the bird was done. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn’t. No one fried turkeys then, they were usually roasted in a device made just for roasting meat. Ours was a General Electric model and it was too large to get into a kitchen cabinet so it stayed in the garage for the majority of the year. Dad would pull it off the garage shelf, give it a quick buff up and get it ready to go. Mom would prepare the stuffing and Dad would get the bird ready. Everything was timed to be ready at a specific time – always before that Dallas Cowboys game. Most of the time everything would work out and the meal would come together at the prescribed time but once in a while the turkey wouldn’t get done on time and would throw the whole thing off. Our meal was pretty traditional with the turkey accompanied by mashed potatoes and brown turkey gravy, candied yams covered with a marshmallow crust and Little Green Giant mixed vegetables. There would be a relish plate with pickles, radishes, celery, green onions and black olives. If Mom went all out we would also have Waldorf Salad (whatever that was.) My Dad. having grown up on a farm, considered virtually every part of the turkey edible and was a particular fan of the “gizzard.” Desert always consisted of pumpkin pie made with canned pumpkin and something called “mince meat pie.” If you have not been subjected to mince meat consider yourself unfulfilled.
Thanksgiving was also a time of sharing and giving. Schools would run campaigns to fill Thanksgiving baskets with food items which were then delivered to families who couldn’t afford to have a big dinner. Our church would do something similar but they would ask for families to volunteer to put together the baskets and then draw the name of a needy family out of a hat. We would then get together a couple evenings before the day and fan out across the city delivering the baskets to the families whose names were drawn. It was always something I looked forward to and I know it helped form my thoughts about giving back. It was something we did as a family, including going to the store and shopping for the items we would put in the basket. In today’s world we are encouraged to make contributions to food banks and there is no doubt they are needed and do a great deal of good. The thing that is missing is the personal connection that was many times established through the delivery of the food baskets. Sometimes the recipients would share their story with you and always there were sincere expressions of gratitude. It also made me realize how fortunate our family was.
Thanksgiving is still an important day for our family. It is a time to share wonderful food – we got over the turkey thing several years ago so today it might be anything from a steaming pot of Posole’ to steak. Gone are the candied yams, and Waldorf salad – thankfully. It is also a time to reflect on all the blessings God has afforded our family. That is what Thanksgiving is truly about. Giving thanks for God’s gracious provision. For His love and most importantly for His gift of grace through the life and death of His son, Jesus Christ. There are numerous Bible verses about thanksgiving, both in the old and new testament. In Nehemiah 12:46 it says, For long ago in the days of David and Asaph there were directors of the singers, and there were songs of praise and thanksgiving to God. Psalm 92:2 says, Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving, let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise. 2 Corinthians 9:11 says, You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. And in 1 Timothy 4:4 it says, For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.
It is not a cliche’ to say everyday should be Thanksgiving Day.
Doug's Journey 