By Teresa A. Martin
As I type this, the turkey carcass lies processed into stock, the last bit of coconut custard pie wiped off the fork, and the holiday buying season officially kicked off.
Did it feel like Thanksgiving to you? It didn’t to me, either. Nor to a lot of people I’ve talked to. A lot of delightful meals were eaten and good friends and families visited but ... but ...
Something is flat.
Maybe it is the unseasonably warm weather. Or the fact that the excitement of big sales on the Day After is undermined by web reporting of the whole season ahead. Maybe it’s the way everyone seems to have worked on Wednesday, worked on Friday, and just didn’t pause between.
Birding.com set the wild turkey as its “Bird of the Week” ... in 1999. I found it when I was surfing for ideas about why this holiday isn’t. In case you forget, that was Nov 21-27, 1999. The idea of a birding was the week was incredibly fresh and new. But not this year. Nothing of note for 2006.
The vast majority of Thanksgiving news stories are about retailers, tragic shootings at a family dinner and fatal holiday fires, and Brad & Angelina in Vietnam. Oh, and dollop of football. And it’s childishly easy to see all these stories with a quick click on Google news.
For the first time in a dozen or more years I have television at my house and when my mother called at the crack of dawn on Thanksgiving morning she urged me to watch, watch, watch the parades. My daughter and I briefly looked, but the wonder wasn’t there. The only wonder was whether the balloons would hurt anyone again.
It just doesn’t feel like Thanksgiving. The only ones really celebrating are the mice, who are circling ‘round the leftovers and my marshmallow fluff dog who has been running from one end of the room to the other barking at them and snuffing at the floor and baseboards.
We live in the post information age. It’s all at our fingertips. We are global. We are connected. Isn’t it great?
But ... but ... sometimes I can’t help but ask if it is also the post-wonder age.
You know, there used to be a lot of mysteries. Does eating turkey make you sleepy? How does the Macy’s balloon stay in the air? What makes Betty’s pumpkin pie so much better than any other? Do they make the same kind of stuffing in California and Texas and Georgia we do in New England? What makes some leaves turn red and others turn yellow? Tell me the story of Thanksgiving.
I love the 24-7 library in the sky – aka, the World Wide Web. I want to know why eating turkey makes you sleepy and it gives me a sort of satisfaction to be able to do a quick search and find out why. (I won’t disclose the answer, but there’s a good National Geographic story from 2005 HERE if you want read about the myth and reality.)
In our quest to connect all, answer all, and be all, maybe we’ve lost something. Something that I call wonder, mystery, and sense of the unknown. What are we thankful for if we have all the answers? Are the layers of knowledge worth the responsibility? Is the world we’ve created mutually exclusive to Thanksgiving?
Maybe we’re just peeling away layers of myth anyway. I mean, the “First Thanksgiving” wasn’t really about Pilgrims. Yeah, there was a feast in 1621, but it was a big party of settlers and Indians, and sort of general harvest get-together that was a one-time event. And, according to the Library of Congress, there had been other “Thanksgivings” by various US settlers and explorers in 1541, 1564 and 1610.
In 1676, June 29 was proclaimed a Thanksgiving in Charlestown MA. Nearly 100 years later the the idea of a US Thanksgiving arose in a decree signed by George Washington on October 3, 1789, declaring the day to "to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God.” Another 100 years or so later, on October 3, 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for the observance of the fourth Tuesday of November as a national holiday. Some 50 years later, commerce exerted its influence and in 1939 Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday to the third Thursday of November in order to extend the holiday shopping season. By 1941 it was returned to the “historical” fourth Thursday again.
So maybe the flatness we’re all feeling this year is more true to the holiday. It’s a nice dinner with a connection to commerce. Nothing more, nothing less.
But ... but ... We once believed that we lived in a time of myth. The myth may have been wrong, it may have been unfair, it may have skewed our national vision. But it was story we could all share. Even if our individual reality was a bit grim, we could look at the images of others, of the tales painted by someone else, and believe. That is the gift of myth and the hope of wonder.
I love that technology has connected us in new ways and has given rise to a million million voices. But a part of me wishes there were a way to keep a little of that mystery and to find a way to balance the power of knowing and the celebration of Thanksgiving.
I’m trying in my own little way by savoring the moment in front of me, the glass of Merlot in hand, the ginger in the pie, and the realization that among the global community is the potential for a new type of thanks that only the future can reveal.
Happy Holiday Shopping, and may your web surfing be merry and bright!
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