Thanksgiving has always, hands down, been my favorite
holiday, probably because it combines three things: an exhilarating snap in the
air as winter approaches, even in California, which Easterners imagine has no
seasons; a community feeling that it is celebrated equally by all Americans;
and a lack of sectarian religiosity and commercialism. (Well, not quite the last—commercialism
is creeping in with the recently
invented atrocity of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, when consumerism
for Christmas kicks into high gear.
This year, many stores are not even waiting for 12:01 a.m. Friday to
open for their pre-Christmas sales, but have invaded Thanksgiving afternoon. Cartoons show buyers shopping while
still gnawing on a turkey leg!)
When I was young, the holiday meant to me a gathering of
family and hours of playing with cousins, unencumbered with religious
observances and replete with a luscious feast. In college, it meant driving with friends from Boston to New
York through the still-remaining glories of New England Fall foliage, to spend
a few cozy days with family. As I
progressed through life, raising my own family, it became a joyful occasion for
thankfulness that we had gotten through another year and were about to embark
together on a new one.
For all that, I always wanted to get a sense of how the
holiday was celebrated centuries ago in New England—maybe not as far back as
the first Thanksgiving in 1621, which was still under brutal conditions, but
say a century or so later. It was
a very romantic idea, I knew, not likely to be fulfilled amidst the creature
comforts of the twentieth century.
Nonetheless, in 1984, I booked the Thanksgiving weekend for my family in
a small colonial-era inn in central Massachusetts. After picking my son up from his college near Boston, the
four of us drove to the inn through light flurries of snow. Not enough snow to inhibit driving, but
enough to imbue the trip with a dreamy aura and make me twice pass through the
hamlet in which the inn stood—a hamlet so small that I must have been blinking
my eyes briefly each time we passed it.
The inn was authentically colonial, from its
many-centuries-old stout construction, its multiple fireplaces, and its antique
decor, down to the furniture, beds, rugs and quilts. We quickly got into the mood of those older days. Then, for the entire weekend we ate
nothing but game with wild vegetables, all cooked according to old-fashioned
recipes. What could be more scrumptious
than wild turkey on Thanksgiving, together with wild cranberries and such! Our walks were through the woods surrounding
the inn, their gorgeous Fall foliage whitened by a dusting of snow.
That throw-back Thanksgiving still stands out in my mind almost
thirty years later as very special.
Although it wasn't at all like the Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving in
Massachusetts in 1621, which celebrated survival in the face of enormous
adversity, it was an almost surreal confirmation of an old American tradition started
then.
This year, I'm pleased that—despite Black Friday—the quality
of the holiday I love so much remains pretty much intact. I
hope you have a good one!