Thanksgiving Without the Pilgrims

Obama's Thanksgiving message

Mary Ellen and I like to celebrate Thanksgiving for all the wrong reasons -- not the reasons provided by American tradition. We could care less about the fundamentalist Pilgrims and the fake stories associated with them. And it certainly isn't our nature to breezily celebrate events that culminated in continental genocide.

We celebrate Thanksgiving from a longer perspective, as a continuation of rituals of merriment and gratitude -- conducted for hundreds or thousands of years -- that were prompted by bountiful (or even adequate) hunting, gathering and/or harvests. There probably have always been rituals in late Fall created by humans to bring folks together, encourage sharing and facilitate partying -- part of a process of readying ourselves for the austerity and challenges of full-on winter. We honor the pagan-like celebrations with a theme of We Made It This Far and We Will (Probabably) Survive, So Let's Feast. To hell with the nationalism, piety and pretense.

This year, we aren't even going that far. With Mary Ellen still recovering (very nicely) from surgery and her appetite still craving only simple nourishment, we're sticking to enjoying the soup and quiche and (maybe) manicotti our neighbors brought by the other day. No guests. No visits to friends' houses. Just us. And our birds. It feels right and relaxed.

We're content and thankful for many things in our personal lives, and for the successes we got to experience on November 4th. We are feeling the gratitude typical of one of our usual Thanksgivings, but it's being expressed one on one, quietly, with little fanfare. The rainy day in Albuquerque seems to match our sense of muted but heartfelt thankfulness and low-key intimacy.

Mary Ellen's sister in Massachusetts shipped us a frozen T-Day dinner, complete with turkey breast, garlic mashed potatoes, whipped sweet potatoes and green bean casserole, but we'll wait till next weekend to eat it -- or whenever Mary Ellen's appetite for such fare returns in earnest. After all, if we're rebelling against the traditional reasons to celebrate Thanksgiving, we can celebrate it whenever we damned well please.

Thanks to all of you who nurture and participate in progressive activism, and to the thousands of readers who have supported this blog since 2004. Hope you're celebrating family, community and positive thoughts in whatever way feels right to you, traditional or not.