Editor’s Note: July/August 2009: Give Thanks
In some ways, this is a season full of hope and joy – not to mention great food and people we love. But it is also a season filled with obligation, competition, expectation and debt. It’s a pretty mixed bag! On a personal level, Thanksgiving is my favorite day of the year. I get to spend all day cooking amazing food, with many of the people I love most wandering through my home, playing board games, watching football and licking the batter off of beaters. Then the sale signs go up in stores, and I get increasingly anxious until I turn into a Scrooge by Christmas day, wondering why people spend so much money to buy so many things.
And there is the undeniable fact that whether it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, Channukah or some other holiday, most of us have lost the real meaning of these celebrations.
It starts with Thanksgiving. As a kid in public schools, I remember being taught about a happy harvest feast in which cultures combined to create a celebrated nation. We even dressed up as Indians with construction paper headdresses – which in hindsight seems a little like wearing blackface on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The truth of that first Thanksgiving is nuanced and powerful, and we are thrilled to have worked with the Smithsonian and The Plimoth Plantation to bring you accurate – and still inspirational – stories about what happened, and what we have become as a result.
We’d be remiss not to pay some attention to gift-giving this time of year. But we tried to focus on how to give gifts that are appropriate and personal – many of which you can’t buy in a store.
I opted out of the holiday shopping season a long time ago. It made no sense to me. I am not a Christian, so why would I celebrate a Christian holiday? I do not have any extra income, so why would I spend what money I do have on trinkets and objects that someone doesn’t need? And when I started looking at the money spent and waste generated this time of year, I got a little cynical.
That said, I'm a gift-giver, big time. I’ve always celebrated what I call “any old Tuesday.” If I see something that someone I love would love, I get it for them, any old Tuesday. Or I make it, any old Tuesday. Conversely, if I wouldn’t give someone a gift on any random Tuesday, I don’t know why I have to give them one now. To me, it makes every day a celebration of the people I love and the bounty that is my life – even if it is not a life of wealth. I can’t help but think that if we all spent more time and money celebrating the people we love, every day of the year, it would be better for our souls and our economy! More money spent consistently throughout the year is easier to budget for, even if it is in much smaller doses!
We’ve gathered recipes from cultural celebrations around the globe, found stories about giving and shed some light on the real origins of Thanksgiving. We hope you enjoy, feast, celebrate and are indeed thankful for the many gifts in your life – especially the ones that can’t be gift-wrapped.