Ten thoughts about Thanksgiving 2015:
1. I still grieve that hysterical illness has stolen from me the ability to make a feast and create a holiday tradition for myself and my family.
2. In the renewed awareness of racial tensions in the United States, there is some talk about the racist origins of the Thanksgiving narratives. I wonder, however, if anyone even thinks about those stories once graduating from kindergarten and those hand-tracing turkeys. America absolutely needs to recognize our inherently racist society and our genocidal history (and current events) but I doubt if Thanksgiving is the best, or even a particularly relevant, talking point.
3. Black Friday has eclipsed too many Thanksgiving traditions and I think that is a spiritual loss.
4. With the expansion of Halloween from a simple children's holiday in the local neighborhood and the ever earlier Christmas creep, Thanksgiving has become merely a pre-Christmas, food bonanza to calorie up for the last mad, month-long, shopping sprint.
5. I miss when the televised Macy's parade was actually a parade and not pan-shots of balloons in between song and dance numbers from a variety of non-parade locations.
6. My oldest kid went off to college and this is my first year to get excited about family coming home for the holiday. She came home Tuesday night and I'm still not sure how I feel about that.
7. Our menu has only one vegetable and it's strictly a concession to my irrational love for green bean casserole with fried onions. Both the nutritionist and the chef in me are wincing.
8. Thanksgiving is the one time I do like living in Arizona because it's always nice weather to eat dinner with the windows and doors wide open and the sunshine streaming in. Sometimes we're even motivated enough to build a fire outside in the evening and sit around drinking and burning jacaranda deadfall. Mmmm, I love that smell.
9. Whenever I see A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, I wonder why all the white kids are seated together on one side of the table and the lone black kid is by himself on the other.
10. I pray for enough community and compassion in the world today that everyone could have abundant food, shelter, security, and friendship to celebrate.
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