Why You Should Celebrate Thanksgiving

Monday, 19 November 2012

The big news from today is Isla’s incessant vomiting, resulting in lost sleep, me going into work late, lots of laundry, and Jennifer’s five hour visit to urgent care with Isla. As I type this, Isla is calmly sleeping on my chest, and Mama is out getting a prescription filled. I was going to write about it here, but then I figured Jennifer would be better at that. I will let her fill you in on the details, as I’m sure she will when she updates the kids’ blog.  

So, instead, I will talk about the upcoming holiday which, barring the spread of Isla’s virus, the four of us will be celebrating later this week.

When I was in elementary school, I was constantly explaining to my classmates why I didn’t celebrate any holidays. Every class had the occasional Jew and Muslim, so they were used to people not celebrating Xmas…but not celebrating any holiday? That was odd.

My default and succinct explanation was that Jehovah’s Witnesses believed all other religions were false, and we were no part of the world. Since we didn’t think any other religion was true, we didn’t play their reindeer games; that is, we didn’t do any religious holidays. That explained Halloween, Xmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter, and that weird one where people smeared dirt on their foreheads. Being “no part of the world,” meanwhile, meant we didn’t celebrate patriotic holidays (Independence Day, Veterans Day, Presidents’ Day).

“But what about Thanksgiving?” they would ask. “That’s not religious, and its not patriotic.”

I would explain that it was patriotic, since it was just an American Holiday. They would answer that other nations also celebrated similar days of thanks and, besides, who cares if its exclusively American? Its about getting together with family and having dinner together and being thankful for what you have – which may or may not have anything to do with loving America. They would say things like, “Don’t Witnesses believe in being with their families?” and “Aren’t you glad you live in a nation that recognizes freedom of religion?”

At this point, I would generally shrug, and tell them they can ask me again next year, after the Paradise gets here. (Since, back in the 1980s, the End was really close.) Okay, I’m joking, I wouldn’t tell them they were all going to be murdered by a loving god any day now. If they wanted to hear that, they’d have to wait until I knocked on their doors on Saturday morning. In reality, I didn’t have a good answer at all.

The situation was muddied all the more the week after Thanksgiving. When people asked me what I did for Thanksgiving, I wasn’t sure if I should tell them the truth or not. Because here was the truth: I spent Thanksgiving with my family, eating turkey. Yeah, it’s true. But I didn’t want to say that, because I didn’t want to sound like I had celebrated Thanksgiving.

For almost my entire childhood, my Dad worked for the same company. Every year, on his last day of work before the Thanksgiving break, his employer awarded all the workers with a free turkey. My dad brought it home, jokingly noting that we now had our Thanksgiving turkey. My mom would then, apologetically, cook it on Thanksgiving. That was the perfect day to do it, really, because all the stores were closed (so she couldn’t run errands) and she had the whole day free to cook a big meal. She often garnished the plates with corn and cranberries because, well, those were on sale at Cub this week. And besides, they go good with turkey.

We’d usually come gather around the table at 4:00 and begin eating, and laughing that it was just like celebrating Thanksgiving. But, no, we weren’t really celebrating Thanksgiving, because that would be bad. We’d shake our heads in dismay at all the corrupt worldly people who had the audacity to gather with their families and have a turkey dinner on that day.

In fact, there were a couple of years that we even went to my grandparents’ house for turkey dinner. My grandma typically excused this behavior by arguing that this was the only day she could get everyone together. We didn’t stay late, though, because Thursdays were always a meeting night, and we had to get to bookstudy to read from the book Revelation-It’s Grand Climax at Hand! for the umpteenth time.

When I was a young adult, there was no compulsion to be with my family on Thanksgiving. And when co-workers would ask why my family didn’t take advantage of the day to get together, I explained that we got together at other times during the year. This was a complete lie, as my family never got together in one big group unless there was a special occasion, such as a wedding or graduation. For most of my 20s, my wife and I hung out with our friends on Thanksgiving, ensuring we stayed separate from the wicked world – the world that “god loved so much.”

Two days from now, many Witnesses will gather for dinner. Some will excuse their behavior claiming it’s just a convenient time to get together. Many will be eating turkey – having obtained a free one from their employer, or a discounted one from Rainbow Foods. But they’re not celebrating Thanksgiving – oh no – they’re not. ‘Cause that wold be bad. Barring illness, my wife, kids, and I will be at Jennifer’s parents’ house along with her grandma, uncles, aunts, cousins, and others. Except for the fact that I know turkey will be the main course, it’s not going to be any different from any other time her family gets together (and her family really does get together on non-holidays). Oh, the other difference is that my wife’s sister Myrtle definitely won’t be there. ‘Cause if she was enjoying a dinner with her worldly relatives on Thanksgiving, that would be bad. So the rest of us will probably talk about how loving her religion is, and her faith-induced shunning will probably cause us all to convert.

Maybe we’ll all convert by 7:30, and then we can go to the meeting with her.

If she’s not too full from eating turkey with her friends.