Thanksgiving today is a holiday when the table is not the only thing that is laden. There are also family expectations, history, interactions, housecleaning and decorating, a day (or days) spent in food preparation, followed often by overeating. It can be stressful. It also can mean hours of trading stories over a meal laced with fellowship.
Thanksgiving is a ritual re-enactment of part of our history, greatly sanitized. In 1621, Pilgrims were grateful for Native American help in surviving those first winters. The relationship between the two peoples went downhill from there, though, as the settler population expanded. Over two hundred years later, Abraham Lincoln set aside a national day of thanksgiving.
The reason for Thanksgiving remains the same—to give thanks for the blessings and abundance that surround us. The grains and vegetables were harvested. The main dish, whether turkey or ham or something else, was once alive and now nourishes you. There is a great deal to celebrate in thanksgiving.
Here are ten suggestions for ways to give thanks with intention:
- Make a thanks list. Throughout November, or a specific time period, each day add one entry to a list of things for which you are thankful. Make it something different every day. This may sound daunting, but is easier than it seems. (And saying “I’m grateful for my cat every day, and my cat is different every day” is commendable but also avoiding the exercise.)
- Prepare this ritual meal, and it is a ritual meal, with what my grandmother called “simple graces.” The simple grace of performing an action not because you have to do it or someone else expects you to, but as a gift and offering. The intention you hold while preparing the food carries over to those who consume it.
- Setting the table, be mindful that each fork, each knife, each spoon, each plate and glass, is placed there to be used by family and friends to eat the food of this meal. It’s like giving a blessing while setting the table.
- Candles on the table can represent something you are celebrating. A single candle can be the light of the sun that warms us and helps grow our food, or the light of love and friendship that brings us together. A pair of candles can represent special people or accomplishments celebrated during the year. Three candles can represent the stages of life we all pass through—children, parents, grandparents, or ancestors; past, present, and future; and so forth.
