Finding joy in being grateful...

What are you thankful for this holiday?

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

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First, a recognition. Thanksgiving Day is a manufactured holiday, one based on myths to make colonizers feel okay about stealing the lives and land from the Indigenous people. There are several extant versions of "The First Thanksgiving," all referring to white people and Indigenous people sharing a meal.

Second, thanksgiving harvest festivals have been a part of all cultures who harvested. It is appropriate to give thanks for a good harvest, to appreciate the work that went into creating what is harvested, and to enjoy a communal meal.

When I was a small child, the family celebrated Thanksgiving meals together. We were poor people, but a large meal was created and enjoyed. We may or may not have had turkey. What I remember are the pies. At my house we rarely had dessert of any kind. But my grandmother was a great cook and baker. With a four burner kerosene stove, no running water, and a fifty square foot kitchen, grandma baked bread, cakes, and pies. My favorite pie was peach, which she made from peaches she "put up" (canned) in summer. She and Grandpa lived in a three room house about sixty miles from our house. The other dishes lodged in my memory are mashed potatoes, gravy, a relish tray, and dinner rolls with butter.

After my dad died at a turkey shooting match (where he was trying to win a turkey) four days before Thanksgiving and ten days before my sister's second birthday, Mom didn't want to celebrate holidays again. Especially Thanksgiving and Christmas. Any celebration we had was half-hearted.

Over the ensuing decades, I've celebrated and not celebrated Thanksgiving. At one point I declared it my favorite holiday because it was a time to be grateful. At another point, I decided to fast on Thanksgiving in protest to the excess of the holiday. I did that for years as my daughter was growing up, and now she carries on that sad tradition. I always used the four day weekend to do projects that needed doing around the house. One year I spent twelve hours in the freezing cold hanging a screen door. It didn't fit and I had to use a hacksaw to make it fit, and somehow the project took all day. I was fasting, and the only thing my daughter had to eat was two boiled eggs. I'm not proud of this story.

I've cooked Thanksgiving Dinner a few times in my life. Once in my first marriage. I was seventeen. Twice with my last long-term partner, the first time so we could invite a dear friend who had AIDS, another time as a pot luck, in which I cooked everything. One of my friends brought two cans of pumpkin. A friend of my partner's brought nothing but herself, and those two friends of ours got into an argument over a ballot measure. My mother was there. She let the dogs up from downstairs because she felt sorry for them. (They were not only fine, they were pampered.) When I insisted they go back downstairs to the family room until after dinner, Mom lay on the couch with her feelings hurt and refused to eat.

My canned-pumpkin-bringing friend left. I drove Mom home. When I got back the table hadn't been cleared, my partner and her friend sat talking while I cleaned up, did the dishes, and fumed. I vowed then never to cook Thanksgiving dinner again.

But I did. Twice more. Once when my nephew joined the military and was stationed within driving distance. I invited him down and fixed a Martha Stewart dinner. The last time, I roasted a turkey, and made the gravy, for a gathering of the Lesbian Gardening Club. It was a great dinner and a fun time. But I got a frozen shoulder from carrying that twenty-two pound turkey the two blocks from my apartment to our complexes residents' lounge.

Not long after that episode I went back to being vegetarian, and stopped eating and cooking any kind of meat, fish, or seafood.

What do you do this holiday?

What I never gave up on was being grateful. These days I have a daily gratitude practice. I don't limit myself to saying what I appreciate once a year. I've found this practice a useful tool for helping me not to fall into self-pitying blues. [Depression is an illness, I know that. Depression is an illness that needs and deserves treatment, as does any other illness.]

Some mornings I have to struggle to find what I'm grateful for, but most days several things spring to mind immediately. For example, I appreciate this space to write whatever I want/need to say. I appreciate the comments, the sharing from readers.

No matter what this national holiday means to you, I hope you can find a bit of joy.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash