Thanksgiving is a Feminine Holiday

This will always be my favorite Thanksgiving column.  It reminds me of my mother.

I have a Thanksgiving morning ritual.  Up before dawn, I make my coffee (Minnesotan’s don’t do much before coffee), clean the turkey, sauté the giblets and start chopping up the onion and celery for the dressing.  While they are cooking, I carry my coffee cup to the door, and step out on the cold, silent porch.   I count the subdued lights filtered through the curtains of every kitchen window.  I know that each small beacon represents a woman starting the hours of work that is the Thanksgiving feast.  This is a day designed to remind each of us that no matter what budgeting, what careful use of leftovers, what creativity in bargain cuts and coupons it takes, our families will be fed. And on this day of Thanksgiving, there will be food in abundance.

Everyone has a favorite holiday.  Mine has always—always—been Thanksgiving.  As a child it meant the best food, unremitting talk, play with my sisters and boardgames played, sitting cross-legged on the floor.  Sorry seemed to be everyone’s favorite, but the pile of boxed board games was a tall one and there were no bad choices. 

You might think that Christmas was every child’s favorite holiday, but not for me.  Thanksgiving was my holiday.  As an adult, it means so much more.

            In my years of making Thanksgiving dinner I have come to believe that Thanksgiving is a feminine holiday.  I don’t mean that it isn’t enjoyed equally by both men and women.  I certainly don’t mean that the deeper meaning of Thanksgiving isn’t appreciated and revered equally by both men and women.  I just mean that the essence of the holiday is feminine.  It is a day centered on two things, the meal and the meaning.  These are feminine strengths. 

            Men are great cooks, but they aren’t likely to plan a meal for a week, get the baking done the day before, set the table with matching candlesticks and get up at 4:30 a.m. to get the meal started.  Men are much more the spontaneous “slap” it on the grill type.  And I haven’t found a man yet who didn’t see an advantage to Chinette over fine china.  No, this holiday loves women.

We are, by every instinct, nurturers.  We must not just feed our families but also keep them from fear of hunger.  We work, this one day, on celebrating food in abundance.  We don’t carbo-load the potatoes, dressing, bread, yams and two different kinds of pies because we need that much food.  We do it to show our families that we can.  We are women.  We feed our families.  They shall not want.

But Thanksgiving is more than just the meal.  This truly is a holiday dedicated to the meaning of its name.  My ancestors began a journey over 200,000 years ago.  It was a seemingly random migration from Africa to northern Europe, through Scandinavia and Great Britain.  The fact is that I am where I am because of untold generations who made one decision after another that led to me.  One accident, one misstep, one choice of “B” instead of “A” and I am a different person, in a different land with a different story.  It is true there is much that I can take control of, ergo, credit for, in my life; but the truth is, I am who I am for no reason other than the Grace of God.  This is what Thanksgiving is for.

For years I worked each Saturday morning at my church’s local food pantry.  It was just two hours of sacking up food and schlepping it to the front for distribution.  If you have any trouble remembering how rich your life truly is, work a month of Saturdays with the less fortunate.  Capture the real meaning of Thanksgiving.  Reflect.  Pay back.  Do good, and then go home and be thankful.

Thanksgiving is a feminine holiday.  It is a day to nurture, a day to care, and a day to love the smallest gifts of faith, friends and family.  Thanksgiving is why I keep the faith.

 

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