With each passing year, it seems as though the winter holiday season begins earlier and earlier. As soon as Halloween has come and gone, stores stock their shelves with red bows, menorahs, candy canes, wooden dreidels, plastic pine trees, and ornaments of every shape and size. Radio stations start introducing Christmas music into their repertoires, and people begin crafting their wishlists. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good ol’ Walking in a Winter Wonderland jam session just as much as the next girl, but I can’t help but feel as though the societal rush into the holiday season creates a drastic lack of appreciation for a very important celebration: Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and in preparation for the special day, I would like to bring to your attention a few reasons why it is such an important holiday.
1. Thanksgiving is built-in family time
For many individuals, Thanksgiving is one of the only times that extended families are able to come together. This is incredibly important because it provides the opportunity for family members to spend a day engaging with one another in a very intentional way. A familial bond is one of the strongest connections that two people can share, although many people make the mistake of overlooking the importance of their relationships with family members. No family is perfect of course, and therefore the idea of exclusively spending a day with family members may be anxiety-inducing or terrifying for some. However, no matter how divided or messy a family may be, each of its members is ultimately united by an inherent sense of love and acceptance that transcends all conflicts and differences. Thanksgiving, therefore, serves the important purpose of giving family members from diverse backgrounds a reason to join in communion with one another, allowing for the development of stronger individual relationships and the strengthening of a family unit as a whole.
2. Thanksgiving is an opportunity to confront our history
I’m sure we have all learned about the very first Thanksgiving meal that was shared between the Puritans and the Wampanoag Indians in the early 1600s. The Puritans’ settling process was initially very difficult due to their lack of preparedness and susceptibility to disease, but they were eventually able to build a thriving community with the help of neighboring Native Americans. However the celebration of Thanksgiving that we commemorate today did not serve the purpose of giving thanks to the Native Americans for their generosity and kindness; instead, it was a way of giving thanks to God for the Puritans’ individual prosperity. Americans have historically exploited, persecuted, and manipulated Native Americans, and continue to do so even to this day. While this fact is ultimately a hard pill to swallow, it is one that needs to be confronted and recognized when talking about Thanksgiving and its historical significance. We must be willing to acknowledge the ugly truth of our past, in order to work towards a future in which Americans don’t continue to repeat their history of oppression and abuse.
3. Thanksgiving encourages thankfulness
It is so easy to look at the world in a negative light, especially with all of the hate crimes, discriminatory policies, mass shootings, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters that have plagued 2017. However, identifying the things that we are thankful for provides a beacon of hope and perspective amidst the pervasive darkness. While it is important to remember the issues that are existent in our modern society, it is also important to reflect inwardly and recognize positive forces in our lives. I truly encourage you to take a few minutes to reflect on the people, places, groups, and things that you are thankful for at some point during this holiday.
Thanksgiving is more than just a day filled with good food, football, and a big parade. Rather it is a very important day that gives us the opportunity to deepen our relationships with family members, remember the not-so-peaceful history that has shaped our reality, and evaluate the important things in our lives. So, lovely people, I urge you to pause your Christmas music, open up your heart, and immerse yourself in this holiday and all it has to offer.