Thanksgiving dinner is so much more than the food on the plate, but it is important. Who is sitting around the table is more important, but even that isn't all of it. To me, the meaning of a Thanksgiving day celebration is the cumulative total of it all. It is all the years and all the combinations. The overlapping layers of sensory experiences. Some things are core - like the turkey, and going around saying what you are most thankful for, but I suppose if you had enough of the other pieces, you could have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner even without these.
As I was preparing the big, bald bird last night, I thought about how I used to watch my Grandmother do exactly what I was doing. I was fascinated and disgusted by her reaching her hand in and pulling out the neck and that bag of grossness. As I stuck my hand in to that carcass, it could have been her hand, or my mother's hand. All of us, over the years, over the decades and the generations, doing the same things, creating the same meal, the same celebration for our families. I like feeling that connection to the past, the connection to where I came from.
I woke up early today and baked a pumpkin pie, then got the stuffing going, and eventually the turkey in the oven. The combination of those smells, brought up memories of Thanksgivings of the past. It was almost like the ghost of Thanksgiving past was there, taking me on a tour. Those times when I was a kid, and all I had to do was watch, wait and eat, my first Thanksgiving on my own, when I had to work at the theater, the Thanksgiving at my grandparents right before we got married, those years when we were in St. Louis, then Colorado, and Utah, and now here in Hawaii. Thanksgivings as a child, then with small children, and now the children grown and half way across the world in different directions, all of them rolling together. All those locations, and the rotation of people at the table, yet they were somehow, fundamentally the same. They have a common thread - gratitude for the wonderful blessing of family, and freedom, the ability to pursue our individual dreams of happiness with a good chance of success. Thanksgiving in my world has always been about love and gratitude for God, family and freedom. My commitment to those ideals is strengthened by the cumulative memories carried on the traditional scents of the day.
Traditions are important, it's how we pass along our values, culture and faith to the next generation. We keep doing things the way we always have so that those core values are strengthened, and the meaningful things of life are not lost.
