As Thanksgiving approaches, I’m reminded of a rather gruesome little song my son learned in nursery school:
“Thanksgiving Day is coming”,
Old Mr. Turkey said.
“Very careful I must be
Or I will lose my head”.
It seems oddly appropriate for this year. Faced with an ongoing and surging pandemic, we all must be very careful or risk losing our heads and/or costing our nearest and dearest theirs!
For most of my adult life, Thanksgiving has been my holiday. When I was 27, I hosted my first Thanksgiving dinner in an effort to fill the huge, gaping hole left by my mother’s death earlier that year. What began with five people, grew over the decades to crowds in the teens and twenties.
So here we are staring down the barrel of Thanksgiving 2020. I’ll be making a turkey dinner for 2… I’m not even sure I know how to do that! Yes, we’ll be Zooming and FaceTiming with friends and family all over the country, but there won’t be the physical warmth and fun and chaos of having all those people crammed into the kitchen until I’d have to shout, “Alright, everybody out except essential personnel!” (Essential personnel consisted of my husband, who was always in charge of carving the mammoth bird, and my brother, who makes the world’s best gravy).
After dinner we would go around the table(s) and each person had to mention something they were thankful for. At first, everyone (especially the kids) would moan and groan, but soon we were engulfed in the love generated by this wealth of gratitude. It became the thing everyone looked forward to.
The decision to celebrate Thanksgiving 2020 separately was made a few weeks ago. Does it hurt? Yup! But I don’t have to guess that there are many families making the same decision. Just last night I was talking with my eldest granddaughter about the fun we had last year making a Gingerbread Turkey as a centerpiece for the Thanksgiving table. He required a bit of shimming in order not to fall over, but we were all very pleased with the results. He was also kind enough to serve as part of the dessert buffet!
The first Thanksgiving was celebrated to commemorate having survived a difficult year, filled with hardship and loss. Sound familiar? For those of us who choose to forego getting together with friends and family this year, we do it as a gift of love, a personal sacrifice. As I look at all those faces on screens all over the country, I’ll be looking at what I am thankful for. I’m more than willing to suffer the loss of their physical presence if it means keeping us all safe and healthy.
It makes me think of my parents. They were married in April of 1943, just a few months into World War II. Ten days later my father was shipped overseas to serve with the Army Air Corps in the Pacific theatre. They were quite literally a world apart. Even though they wrote to each other every day, I’m sure that first Thanksgiving was frightening and heartbreakingly lonely. Compared to that kind of sacrifice, I would say we have it easy.
Having begun this musing with song lyrics, I’ll close with something that was written for the 1944 movie “Meet Me in St. Louis” for that other holiday that falls hard on Thanksgiving’s heels:
“Someday soon we all will be together, if the Fates allow.
Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow”.
(Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – Hugh Martin & Ralph Blane)
And so we shall. Wishing you and yours a Happy, Healthy, Gratitude-filled Thanksgiving!
Daryl Kenny Callirgos
November 14, 2020
