Question about Thanksgiving

[Burgold]

I've always celebrated Thanksgiving as a secular holiday, check that as an American Holiday, but in recent years I've come across those who believe that it isn't that at all, but a religious holiday. A thanks to God for the Harvest and the good in their lives. or A prayer for continued good in their lives.

My family always treated it as a coming together and a time of sharing everything that we had with everybody. Sort of like the elementary school version of the starving Pilgrims being saved by the largess of the Natives. It seemed to me to be a holiday independent (not of God necessarily) but of religion, one that all faiths could enjoy equally. A celebration of the harvest (metaphorically and gastronomically speaking.

Others have told me that I'm wrong. That it is, in fact, a Christian Holiday. What do you all think?

And what's your favorite Thanksgiving treat?

[rincewind]

Well, the Pilgrims were religious so I'm sure they had religious implications tied into the festival. But, I think as an American holiday it is rather secular.

On the other hand, most religious people tend to have some religious aspect in everything they do, so it is no surprise they would consider Thanksgiving religious. Afterall, they thank God for the food they are about to receive.

[rincewind]

And my favorite 'treats' are: stuffing, mashed potatoes, and whiskey.

[zoony]

stuffing? :puke:

I like my TG meal to be all the same color. Turkey, hot rolls, corn, and mashed potatoes. (okay not exactly the same but close)

And Burgold... TG is what you make of it. That's your answer.

.....

[headexplode]

It may have been a christian holiday at one time, but I think we celebrate it now in a more secular sense. I think christmas is the same way. I'm not a christian but I celebrate christmas every year. For me, it is more about the spirit of the holiday, the giving, spending times with those you love, breaking bread, that sort of thing. The religious connotation is competely gone for me. There is a basis of christianity in these holidays, to be sure, but I think they're holidays that welcome all people.

(We should remember, though, that for some american indians, thanksgiving is a day of mourning--I think we would do well to appreciate that).

[Corcaigh]

From what I understand, celebrating a good harvest goes back to Pagan times, long before Christianity. The Church of England and other Christian churches has held Harvest Festivals to give thanks for more than a century but that is usually a month or so earlier than Thanksgiving.

I think you could argue that the holiday has its roots in a religious festival, but not necessarily a Christian one as the tradition long pre-dates that religion.

[zoony]

(We should remember, though, that for some american indians, thanksgiving is a day of mourning--I think we would do well to appreciate that).

Why?

[Teller]

stuffing? :puke:

I like my TG meal to be all the same color. Turkey, hot rolls, corn, and mashed potatoes. (okay not exactly the same but close)

And Burgold... TG is what you make of it. That's your answer.

.....

You suck. And you've clearly never had my grandma's stuffing.

Seriously though, I agree. It's what you make of it. I choose to pause and thank God for the fact that my kids are healthy, and that they love me, that I have my health, a good job, and a roof over my head. It's been a difficult year, no doubt. But I truly am blessed, and what better time to show my appreciation for that.

You can appreciate what you have, without believing in God. I'm not sure who you thank, exactly. But it IS possible.

[Burgold]

If it were done as a religious thing, I think it would change drastically for me. Afterall, Kvetchgiving just doesn't have the same ring.

[rincewind]

stuffing? :puke:

.....

And you give me **** for not liking bacon?

[iheartskins]

zoony, you're off your rocker if you don't like stuffing. I guess you've just never had the iheartskins' brand of stuffing, which is excellent, if I do say so myself.

Burgold--I see the holiday as largely secular.

Here's a piece from the WSJ on this point:

'Let All Your Thinks Be Thanks'

By JOSEPH EPSTEIN

November 21, 2007; Page A19

Conventional wisdom has it that Thanksgiving is the best of all American holidays. As a contrarian, I'd like to put that wisdom to the test.

Thanksgiving does have the absence of the heavy hand of dreary gift giving that has put the groans in Christmas, the moans in Hanukkah. And no one has written treacly Thanksgiving songs, comparable to "White Christmas" and "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire," which, I suspect, have helped make Christmas one of the prime seasons for suicide. Let us not speak of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," of whose travail we shall all have heard more than our fill as we ride up elevators and pass along the aisles of department stores.

For some time in America we have, of course, been living under Kindergarchy, or rule by children. If children do not precisely rule us, then certainly all efforts, in families where the smallish creatures still roam, are directed to relieving their boredom if not (hope against hope) actually pleasing them.

Let us be thankful that Thanksgiving has not yet fallen to the Kindergarchy, as has just about every other holiday on the calendar, with the possible exceptions of Yom Kippur and Ramadan. Thanksgiving is not about children. It remains resolutely an adult holiday about grown-up food and drink and football.

The weather, which provides the backdrop to Thanksgiving, is also much in its favor. In most parts of the country cool, sometimes cold, it doesn't usually blow the holiday away with tornados, hurricanes or great snow storms. Warm jackets, sweaters, corduroy trousers are the order of the day -- comfort clothes, the sartorial equivalent of comfort food.

Comfort food is what Thanksgiving provides, and to the highest possible power. Large browned turkeys, rich heavy stuffings, sweet potatoes, cranberries . . . but enough of this gastronomic porno. Everyone has in mind his or her own memories of splendid Thanksgiving dinners.

My own are those my late mother-in-law used to give at her house on a small lake in Michigan. She was a dab cook, everything fresh, handsomely set out, perfectly prepared, without the least bit of pretension. She invited her extended family, roughly 20 of us, most of whom drove up from Chicago.

The dominant figure at these dinners was a large, ebullient, red-faced man named John Lull, the second husband of my wife's Aunt Phoebe. John was at what Mencken once called "the country-club stage of culture": A man who lived for golf and food and drink, had an eye for women. At first sight, he was your homme moyen sensuel, except there was nothing very moyen about his sensuality, which was pretty damn extraordinary. Diet, cholesterol, calories, these were words that I never heard pass his lips.

Thanksgiving dinners at my mother-in-law's always ended with a choice of three pies: pumpkin, mincemeat and apple. John would choose a large slice of the apple, requesting a slice of cheese placed atop it, whereupon, with a goofy smile he would announce, with a regularity as if it were part of a liturgy, "Pie without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze."

Pro football on television from Detroit on Thanksgiving is a remnant of the old patriarchy. (The patriarchy as we know is now all but dead, and those of us who retain fond if dimming memories of it have, alas, nothing left to fight for but the double standard.) Detroit regularly used to play Green Bay in these Thanksgiving games, and my memory of them is of famous quarterbacks, Bobby Lane, Tobin Rote, Bart Starr, eluding oncoming bruisers to complete impossible passes that won games in their final seconds.

An aging couch potato -- au gratin, to be sure -- I still watch these Thanksgiving games. Not having a horse in the race -- I am a Chicago Bears fan -- I view them with a fine detachment, noting changes in the game since I long ago began wasting my time watching it, among them the advent of 6-foot-6-inch quarterbacks, the 300-plus pound linemen, the human equivalents of SUVs.

Thanksgiving also has inclusiveness going for it. The holiday really is for all Americans, though I suppose a sourpuss leftist might, with boring trenchancy, be able to interject it isn't such a fine day for Native Americans.

While secular in tone, Thanksgiving is also slightly religious in spirit. I am having Thanksgiving this year at the home of my son and daughter-in-law, and because of the slight religious nature of the holiday have asked them not to invite Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens or any of the rest of the atheist gang, all of whom seem likely, if on the premises, to put a dampening spirit onto the proceedings.

I wish the poet W. H. Auden were still alive, so that he might be at the same table where I eat my Thanksgiving dinner. Auden, I think, nicely captured the spirit of Thanksgiving when he wrote that, in prayer, it is best to get the begging part over with quickly and get on to the gratitude part. He also wrote, "let all your thinks be thanks."

To be living in a prosperous and boundlessly interesting country, at a time of high technological achievement, and of widening tolerance -- much to be thankful for here. "Wystan," I'd like to tell the poet, "you got it right, kid. Now how about a drumstick."

Mr. Epstein is the author, most recently, of "In a Cardboard Belt!: Essays Personal, Literary and Savage" (Houghton Mifflin, 2007).

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119559530489099680.html

Note too that a celebration of the harvest season is a global holiday--not just one celebrated as "Thanksgiving" in the U.S.

Our Tokyo office is closing because November 23rd is Labor Thanksgiving Day (Kinro Kansha no hi). It became a holiday in 1948 as a day for citizens to express gratitude to one other for work done throughout the year and for the fruits of those labors. Labor Thanksgiving Day (Kinro Kansha no Hi in Japanese) is actually a modern name for an ancient ritual called Niinamesai (Harvest Festival). Today, Labor Thanksgiving Day has become a national holiday while Niinamesai is celebrated as a private function of the Japanese Imperial Family.

[headexplode]

Why?

I think the roots of Thanksgiving, as we understand it, are linked to the American indians, specifically to their role in helping those first pilgrims survive in a harsh new land. Further, our nation's expansion and continuing prosperity came at a tough price in the lives and cultural dissolution of american indians, and I think that while we are giving thanks for our many blessings, it is respectful to at least acknowledge how we got to where we are today.

[Dan T.]

Maybe Thanksgiving is the perfect holiday because it can be all things to all people - family time and a time of thanks for all, religious for some, food and football orgy for others. In that sense I agree with much in the WSJ article, aside from the snarky swipes at Christmas.

BTW, stuffing is great. Oyster or sausage stuffing cooked in the bird, lots of gravy.

Also Thanksgiving is the one time of the year when you can eat that green bean casserole. You know, the one with cream of mushroom soup and those crispy canned fried onions on the top.

[stoshuaj]

Why?

maybe?

[Reic]

I never viewed it as a Christian Holiday, and I am christian. I have viewed it as an American Holiday, such as yourself, Burgold. I always thought of it as a thanks for friends and family and of course, good ass food

The pilgrims carried it over from european harvest-time festivities, and had friends over for good ass food

My favorite Thanksgiving treat is green bean casserole!

And applie pie, but I like apple pie every day

[zoony]

I think the roots of Thanksgiving, as we understand it, are linked to the American indians, specifically to their role in helping those first pilgrims survive in a harsh new land. Further, our nation's expansion and continuing prosperity came at a tough price in the lives and cultural dissolution of american indians, and I think that while we are giving thanks for our many blessings, it is respectful to at least acknowledge how we got to where we are today.

This is a very good book on the Mayflower and the Pilgrims. I think it will change your perspective somewhat. I also recommend anything else written by Nathaniel Philbrook. His research is impeccable, and he is a very good writer.

And I'm not picking on you at all HE, I just get extremely tired of reading about American Indians as if they were all a bunch of existential hippies living in harmony among the fruited plains of America until the evil white man came and wiped them out.

First of all, it was disease that wiped out most Native Americans. Europeans brought smallpox and other diseases that the Native Americans had absolutely no defense against. Disease was already rampant in New England when the Pilgrims landed. The Pilgrims, with their cannons and muskets, provided a much-needed security for the Indian tribe they broke bread with, as they were vulnerable to attack by neighboring tribes (because of their weakened numbers.) So I was surprised to read what you wrote in that regard. The Pilgrims helped the Indians just as much as the Indians helped the Pilgrims.

While we all like to believe the story that we acted out in our second grade play, history (as always) is much more intriguing, much more ambiguous, and much more complicated than it seems.

Second, make no mistake, had the American Indians developed the technology to cross the Atlantic and exploit Western Europe, they would have done so in a nanosecond. Many Native American tribes were absolutely brutal and fierce. Enough to make the English blush. They didn't earn the term 'savage' thru simple racism. Although that's the picture that many want to paint.

History will always unfold with dominant cultures and people exerting their will. While it certainly isn't 100% defensible, it's certainly not 100% wrong, either, as most would have you believe.

another outstanding book if you are interested in reading about the Native Americans as Lewis & Clark encountered them... Native Americans who (many) had never before seen white men, and were in as 'untouched' a state as any European had ever seen. Trust me, they weren't baking brownies and smoking hash. And FWIW, I also recommend just about anything written by Ambrose as well.

[rincewind]

zoony... the fact that we purposely gave them blankets with small pox doesn't really help the whole disease spreading thing. Yes, some Native American tribes were fierce, but what the Europeans did to them was more 'savage' than anything the Indians could have dreamed inflicting on the white man.

edit - and Ambrose is a plagiarist.

[zoony]

And trust me guys, I've had just about every kind of stuffing there is. Sorry, I don't like it.

It reminds me of Jr. High when we used to all pile the leftovers from our school lunch onto one tray and mash it up, pour milk on top of it, until it was an indistuingishable mound of soggy brown gruel. Then of course we'd dare someone to take a bite.

Although I never did, I would imagine it tasted very similar to stuffing.

....

[zoony]

zoony... the fact that we purposely gave them blankets with small pox doesn't really help the whole disease spreading thing. Yes, some Native American tribes were fierce, but what the Europeans did to them was more 'savage' than anything the Indians could have dreamed inflicting on the white man.

2 points... the blankets with smallpox happened long after the time period I am referencing. Hundreds of years. (and I don't know a whole lot about that, but I would bet you it is among the most overblown events in history)

And make no mistake, Native Americans would certainly have wiped out the Pilgrims, murdered the women and children, taken their wares, and used/traded them for their own good. If they'd had the capability.

As a matter of fact, they tried. Read the book.

.......

[Burgold]

And trust me guys, I've had just about every kind of stuffing there is.

Candidate for the taken out of context thread?

[zoony]

Candidate for the taken out of context thread?

****! :laugh:

[rincewind]

2 points... the blankets with smallpox happened long after the time period I am referencing. Hundreds of years. (and I don't know a whole lot about that, but I would bet you it is among the most overblown events in history)

And make no mistake, Native Americans would certainly have wiped out the Pilgrims, murdered the women and children, taken their wares, and used/traded them for their own good. If they'd had the capability.

As a matter of fact, they tried. Read the book.

.......

I understand that. But, remember, we were the intruding element. And when I said the white man was worse to the Native Americans than vice versa, I was looking at the whole history; not just one small microcosim that shows the brutal Indians.

[zoony]

Thanksgiving factoid for those of you reading this thread (taken from above book):

Contrary to popular belief, the Pilgrims did not set sail from England. They set sail from Holland.

The Pilgrims had already been kicked out of England, they had set up a colony in religiously-tolerant Holland. Therefore it is to the Dutch that we all owe the idea of a seperation of church and state. Because as devout as the Pilgrims were, they strongly believed in a secular government, as they had lived in Holland and seen its benefits. The first ammendment came directly from the Dutch playbook in that regard.

Enjoy your turkey everyone

[zoony]

And when I said the white man was worse to the Native Americans than vice versa, .

And make absolutely no mistake whatsoever, the reason for this existed not because of will/want, but because of means. Again, had Native Americans had the means to wipe out European settlers, they would have done so without hesitation.

........

[Burgold]

Contrary to popular belief, the Pilgrims did not set sail from England. They set sail from Holland.

The Pilgrims had already been kicked out of England, they had set up a colony in religiously-tolerant Holland. Therefore it is to the Dutch that we all owe the idea of a seperation of church and state. Because as devout as the Pilgrims were, they strongly believed in a secular government, as they had lived in Holland and seen its benefits. The first ammendment came directly from the Dutch playbook in that regard.

Enjoy your turkey everyone

Very cool. I love learning things like that.