In my experience, Thanksgiving is the only holiday that has not been subject to disappointment in recent years. My family has never been big on Halloween, and I always have high expectations every year for a lukewarm and sleepy Christmas. But Thanksgiving’s different. It is single handedly the most solid, grounded holiday in comparison to its arguably more popular counterparts. But Thanksgiving is so much more than a four day weekend with dinner and leftovers. It is an atmosphere, cultivating, growing, and festering until a great culmination of emotions on the final Thursday of November.
1621 marked the creation of the single greatest holiday of all time in a celebration of survival and harvest among the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag natives. A popular refutation of Thanksgiving’s humble origins is the fact that not long after, the natives were unfairly removed from their land and treated with hostilities backed by greed. However, I believe it is important to cite events like Thanksgiving not only as a means of being hopeful and optimistic, but also to look inwards and reflect. 1621 birthed the Thanksgiving spirit, and it is our responsibility to live out this spirit in the greatest month of the year.
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” This lyric is from one of the most famous Christmas carols that ring through our ears, inviting us to join in the festivities every December and to rejoice! But I believe that the most wonderful time of the year begins not with the winter solstice but with the autumn one. By definition, Thanksgiving is smaller than Christmas. It holds significantly less magnitude than either Christmas or Easter–without which the largest religion in the world is made obselete–and it simply does not compete commercially. For instance, one of the key aspects of Christmas is the gifting. Walking through Target with Mariah Carey’s anthem blaring over the loudspeaker for the 10th time is certainly a… spiritual experience. On the contrary, Thanksgiving itself is a quieter holiday with only warm, autumn feelings being passed around the table in the form of stuffed turkey, gravy, and mashed potatoes. In addition, Black Friday, while not exactly what it used to be, is a separate “holiday” in of itself that bombards consumers. But while Halloween and Christmas struggle today in popular culture, sparring with the materialistic adulterations of Hallmark films and sugary snacks, Thanksgiving remains grounded and faithful to its modest origins while its leftover-filled Friday counterpart attracts the hyper-capitalistic populace.
What other time of year are we allowed turkey? Stuffing? Cranberry sauce? Growing up in a Korean household, such commodities were a rarity and therefore a blessing every November. As far as I know, no other mainstream holidays REALLY have specific foods associated with them. And even the few ones that do are just seriously not as good. Christmas is littered with eggnog and gingerbread which are of course delicious but only desserts. Halloween’s obsession with pumpkins is not explained, nor is such explanation necessary, and the sugary traditions are anything but sentimental. However, Thanksgiving’s feast is one that remains unwavering in American culture. It, unlike foods in the other holidays, holds so much more meaning. After all, we never truly get tired of eating these foods. As stated earlier, the food carries love and care in it, conveying familial and familiar emotions each and every year.
A car ride with my dad about 6 years ago told me everything I needed to know about appreciating this beautiful and orange season. He pointed out to me the beauty of the colored leaves and of nature in general. This awe-inspiring observation stuck with me, and every year it accompanies me as I go to celebrate Thanksgiving. The holiday itself becomes a climax of all that autumn has been brewing in the months leading up to it, and before the cold and dark winter, it displays a final hurrah of fall festivities and the beauty of the season.
Thanksgiving also brings this idea of fuzzy family feelings. While Christmas also becomes a gathering time of family and friends in what is known as the giving season, Thanksgiving, in my experience, dominates in comparison. Thanksgiving has always been the Avengers: Endgame of family gatherings. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, comes with food in hand. Only one holiday has the ability to galvanize people to one place every year and it is and has always been Thanksgiving.
So I invite everyone to observe this four-day weekend coming up soon with some new insights in mind. In comparison to the grand holidays surrounding it, Thanksgiving is a solid and perpetual holiday each year. I argue that it is more than just a feast, but rather a celebration of family, ethics, culture, and nature. Without it, the buffer between the other two major holidays would be cold and depressing. But in it, we find a comfortable jubilee for everyone to enjoy.
