Thanksgiving Cards
Food, glorious food.
What if, today,
we were grateful
for everything?
—Charlie Brown
And here we are careening down the road to Thanksgiving, an annual event you can define lots of ways.
As a consumer, it’s the day that used to launch the Official Holiday Season, now relegated to the date when your internal alarm bells start clanging, sales and lights having commenced practically since the start of the school season. Your sister-in-law has finished her gift shopping; what’s wrong with you?
As a parent or teacher or worker-bee, it’s that hellish high-wave period between September and January when dentist appointments, class projects, workloads, and after-school commitments—one kid’s soccer game an hour west, the other one’s viola lesson on the north side—are cresting. You’ll either ride that sweet wave to the shore as the day of alleged rest arrives, or you’ll drown in the aftercrash.
And speaking of alleged rest: as a cook (aka, even in 2023, usually the woman), it’s the day you’re trapped in a damp and cluttered and increasingly delicious smelling kitchen surrounded by chaos. (I made that discovery when I found myself somehow, inexplicably, an adult in her own household, far from her mother, and it occurred to me that I was now the one expected to produce that bounty.)
As a family, it’s the day you have to put up with each other, and you have to do it in close proximity. Everybody has to sit at a table and face one another and try to be polite.
As a child, however—or at least, for the lucky child I was, back in the pleistocene—it’s just a great ol’ day. You pal around outside throwing around a football or giggling with your girlfriends, you watch The Wizard of Oz, you plop down at the table and eat and eat and eat, and then you go outside (or lie on your stomach in front of the TV to watch the next installation, Miracle on 34th Street maybe) and do a variation on what you did before the food until you come back in for another serving of stuffing.
Does all this sound insanely Ozzie and Harriet? Like I said: I was a lucky, lucky child. I even liked everybody in my family. I know this wasn’t the case for everybody, or even many, and it hurts my heart to know this. I hope that yours was at least some small variation of mine, or at the very least, was one you’ve moved on from relatively free of scars.
One thing we didn’t do, however, was spend much time on the Generous-Indians-and-Grateful-Pilgrims story. I got the drill at school all right, along with materials for making a turkey by drawing around my hand, but not much was made of it, for better or worse. (I certainly was never told, for example, that the folks meeting up with the immigrant arrivals were the Wampanoag peoples. Maybe it isn’t appropriate to try to teach young kids about the complex diplomatic give-and-take of the actual encounters between hosts and visitors in the 17th century, but surely we could have learned the names of the hosts.)
At home, we didn’t even do the thing that some families do, and that I have now instigated—Rick and Corey might say imposed—on the tiny family I have remaining, where you go around the table and name something you’re thankful for. The conversation focussed more on whether or not Aunt Euny’s pumpkin pie was as good as last year’s and the degree of success Mom had had in this year’s effort to make cranberry sauce interesting.
We also didn’t send Thanksgiving cards. As I did with this newsletter’s Halloween entry, I’ve found information about where to find them and what to say in them.
And, as I did with Columbus Day, I’ve found suggestions on how to observe this day thoughtfully and with respect. The day historically has involved a healthy degree of oversimplification and whitewashing of an ugly chapter in this continent’s history. But it means well: consider first and ultimately its name. We can give thanks not only for the bounty on our tables but for the chance to grow and get better. Gratitude is never a bad thing to share.
This Wordstream blog is for business and marketing folks, so its advice is geared to writing cards to clients and employees, but it includes great suggestions appropriate for any recipient. Some of my favorite shorter ones for you to use as prompts for your own versions:
• Wishing you a harvest of blessings, good health, and good times.
• Here’s to the company of good friends and family.
• The happiest of Thanksgivings to the kindest of people.
• Thanksgiving is a reminder that we all become richer when we give.
• May your hearts be as warm as your kitchens this Thanksgiving.
Longer messages geared particularly to cultural sensitivity are included, too. The hypothetical recipient of this example is a business client, but the message could easily be revised for individuals, too.
This time of year, there is no shortage of greetings for people to eat lots of food, be surrounded by family, and count their blessings. While we all can find something to be grateful for, there are some that have more blessings than others. To those who don’t have a roof over their head or access to food; to those who don’t have loved ones to celebrate with; and to those who are mourning the hardships of the Indigenous people: we see you and we support you today and always.
The suggestions on this site are for teachers, but the spirit can be applied anywhere. The writer proposes that traditions and words could focus on the idea of people helping one another during times of need—service rather than lip service, essentially.
Help with food kitchens, clothing drives, and food donations are always needed during this time ahead of winter. If we have plenty in life to be thankful for, we can share some of our time and generosity with those less fortunate or gain awareness of inequality. You could even organize a charity fundraiser as a class.
If you choose to do something as ambitious as heading up a drive, your Thanksgiving card can promote it as a little P.S. after your greeting—an invitation to join you at the time of the drive or a link to a page with information.
If you are of a crafty nature, the site includes terrific suggestions for projects you can do with kids of all ages, with or without a classroom.
Cultural Survival, which I referenced in an earlier Columbus Day entry, has a great page about Thanksgiving, too. It includes activity suggestions, including this one about dinner.
Native chefs have created a culinary movement with the goal of getting Indigenous people to honor their ancestors through their dietary choices. Bring Native American dishes to the dinner table.
Friends of mine did a variation of this suggestion years ago, whipping up a meal consisting only of foods and ingredients native to the Americas pre-1492—and they did it a full decade before foodies and gourmet cooks started incorporating the idea into their creations. Num.
Lagniappe: What is creativity? Are you “creative”? Let go of your biases and assumptions, as laid out in this essay in Aeon, a digital magazine that asks “the big questions and finds the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on science, philosophy, society, and the arts.”