This week we pause to give thanks for the people and things that keep us going through the year.
Well, pause might be a bit of a stretch. Many of us will be stuck in traffic on the road to grandma”s place or battling for elbow room in a cramped airliner. Others tasked with preparing the meal must spend the day stirring, cutting, pouring — and diving for cover when the turkey fryer erupts. Law enforcement officers, firefighters and other people critical to our lives (including retail clerks, apparently) remain at work over the holiday.
And then there”s the infamous Friday that follows. Really, it”s not much of a break.
Thanksgiving, as a holiday, varies according to perspective. A few decades ago it was a week away from school to play football in the empty lot next door, watch Charlie Brown for the sixth or seventh time and plop down on the couch for a dose of Dallas Cowboys football — all while mom toiled for 12 or so hours in the kitchen. It was a perfect vacation.
Nowadays I”m usually just pondering the week”s workload and plumbing the depths of my credit as those around me beg for turkey and ham and roast, as well as homemade pie and that hideous side dish involving sweet potatoes and marshmallows.
I mean, who really wants that stuff? It”s like the cookie part of the Oreo — taken for granted as an essential part, yet cast aside when the moment counts.
But I digress.
The only constants over time are Charlie Brown, for the 40th or 50th time and the Dallas Cowboys, at least for me. Even during the years I spent in Prague, expats would gather for reminders of home, including the cartoon classic and an evening of football to go along with lean, free-range, brown meat turkey and earthy pumpkin unrecognizable to most, as it did not come from a can.
This will sound pathetically corny, but sitting at long tables set up in an expat pub called Jama, the true meaning of Thanksgiving again revealed itself.
Bad, huh?
It turns out the holiday has little to do with turkey, trimmings, football, or huge discount savings.
At Jama, conversation and laughter (and beer; plenty of beer) flowed through what had become an extended family of people far from home, cast off from the normal ebb and flow of Thanksgiving. The Czech Republic did not recognize the American holiday, naturally. Thursday was a work day, followed by the gathering at Jama. The next day was also just another day at the desk. With no “Black Friday” looming, with no crass consumerism calling out to us, Thanksgiving became just that — a moment to pause briefly and enjoy those around us, as well as to recall home, family and tradition.
You know, tradition: Lucy tormenting Charlie Brown, the ”Boys trouncing whichever team they played.
OK, so I can”t shake some of the cultural clutter. Yet the warmth of family and friends, the simple pleasure in sharing an evening with one, two or several dozen people, the anticipation of the season to come, the timeless nostalgia for moments past, the noise and clatter and fried onions inexplicably shaken from a tin onto a bowl of green beans for the only time in the year — all of this makes up Thanksgiving, and it can be lived in just a few short hours.
People are anxious to share this experience, even to create it for those in want. Churches open their doors, serving Thanksgiving dinner for any who wish to join them. People welcome friends and neighbors unable to make it to a distant family home for dinner. Despite all the attention paid to shops extending Black Friday to Thursday evening and small retail outlets claiming Saturday for their own, a fundamental, Norman Rockwellesque desire still beats within America”s urgent culture. There”s just a great spirit about the holiday when stripped of its commercial accoutrements.
Of course, I hardly expect that spirit to last much more than a day at my house. After all, my Thanksgiving will involve a personal attempt — sure to be sticky, messy, possibly hazardous and involve dozens of utensils — at pecan pie from scratch, followed by a series of excuses as to why I can”t pull myself from in front of the TV to help clean up the kitchen that is sure to stir some animosity.
But at least I”ve learned to value the true meaning of Thanksgiving in theory.
