In Defense of Thanksgiving
Unpopular opinion of the day: Thanksgiving is the best holiday.
Chesterton said “Thanks are the highest form of thought.” What could possibly be a better way to spend a day off (and likely two) than to break bread with loved ones?
The celebratory feast might be the most fundamental aspect in all of human nature. Feasts are the traditional form of celebration from time immemorial, and are so par excellence because the word is cognate with the French ‘fête’, the Spanish ‘fiesta’, and the Latin for ‘divine, holy, consecrated place’. And note the sacramental origins of the word ‘Thanksgiving’, which goes back to the Latin ‘Eucharistia’, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
Thanksgiving was created in the most American way, its origins dating back to the early Pilgrims, who celebrated the First Thanksgiving with the natives after surviving a particularly harsh bout of disease in 1621. George Washington’s 1789 Proclamation dedicated the nation “to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”
Couple that with the fact that the holiday is timed nicely with the harvest—the close of the Church calendar and the beginning of Advent and the lead up to Christmas, and you have all the fixins for a grand celebration. It gives us a break before the last push to finish the year and enjoy the bounties of our year’s work.
Do people go overboard? Sure. People will gorge on this day. It’s almost a duty. But even this sordid ritual has its blessings. How many times do you hear ‘I’ll never eat again?’ after that last bite? The fact of the matter is that the more people stuff their faces on Thanksgiving the less they’ll be inclined to do so the other days of the year. On the contrary, Thanksgiving is an opportunity to purge those gluttonous desires for the rest of the year.
Also, it is remarkably resistant to commercialization that other holidays have fallen prey to. There are no demands to buy unwanted presents, no Elf on a Shelf fiascos, no Halloween ghouls haunting us, no candy coated with artificial pink coloring. Just good, old-fashioned family, football, and food.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it is the holiday in which pie is most prominently featured. There is, of course, pumpkin pie, but also pecan pie, apple pie, apple crapple, cranberry pear pie, buttermilk pie, honey pie, maple chess pie, and, at the top of the list, naturally, sweet potato pie. It is not illegal to have a slice of every pie brought to your Thanksgiving feast. It is encouraged as long as the slice is super thin. Ultimately, recall that no pie-eating people can ever be permanently vanquished. Take advantage of this opportunity—it will not be manifest for another twelve months.
So, let’s defy the naysayers, early Christmas decorators, cake eaters, and Bernie Bros of the world that want to abolish this holiday. It’s time we recognize Thanksgiving for what it is—a testament to life, goodness, and God.
Who’s with me?
