Thanksgiving is a weird-ass holiday
And where it starts to make sense
2017. My fifth Thanksgiving. As an Australian-Canadian, I’ve seen way more Goon of Fortune than Thanksgiving.
At face value it seems simple and awesome. Relax. Give thanks.
Then it gets weird.
Gratitude vs. gluttony
On this grand day of gratitude, approximately 20-million turkeys are slaughtered every year in Canada, majority destined for the Thanksgiving table.
If these numbers referred to people, every October the entire population of New York, London, Sydney and Toronto would be wiped out.
In the U.S. this number jumps to around 45-million. For November Thanksgiving, everyone in Tokyo, the world’s most populated city, would be killed, along with Los Angeles, Chicago, Vancouver and Washington DC.
Every Thanksgiving, we kill enough birds to populate the world’s biggest cities. Crazy.
Thanksgiving also coincides with Black Friday, a shopping event where the mania of deal-driven shoppers sparks headlines, youtube compilations and nationwide comparisons to determine which state has the most extreme consumers.
I’m not saying give up turkey or Black Friday. What people put in their mouth or open their wallets for is their own business.
I’m just saying if you stop to think about it, it’s pretty weird for a day that began with venison, veggies and compassion.
The evolution of gratitude
When asking Canadians about Thanksgiving, majority replied “something to do with a harvest. We get a day off and eat Turkey.”
Popularized in the 1830s, Canadian Thanksgiving was underpinned by ideas of white Christian Canadians’ moral superiority to Indians, and their slavery-supporting neighbors in the United States.
This holier-than-thou mentality fueled the Halifax war, and inspired the “cultural genocide” of indigenous Canadians. Thanks to Governor Ed’s Scalping Proclamation, the government would literally pay you for scalping an indigenous child. Not to mention the smallpox plagues.
Holy shit Canada. Scalping?
The U.S. hymn “We gather here together” originated in the 1596 battle of Turnhout. King Phillip II, a rich pointy-bearded Catholic, barred protestants from practicing.
The song celebrates sectarian uniformity, and the end of “heretical outsiders”. Essentially, harmony through a lack of diversity.
Traditionally, majority of Thanksgiving gratitude ran along the divisive lines of ‘thank God we’re not like those heathens’.
Native American Thanksgiving is often called a day of mourning, paying homage plague victims, and those who were captured and sold as slaves.
Heavy stuff.
But despite the racism, genocide and religious cleansing there is something miraculous about Thanksgiving.
Why I love Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving, in its very name, describes a time to be grateful. It’s a time to foster reconciliation, recognizing that people from vastly different backgrounds can co-exist harmoniously.
Turkey and gourd-riddled dinner tables are a tiny, shallow flicker of something much bigger and more important.
There’s attention given to family and friends, bountiful food, and even an official holiday giving you time to enjoy these things.
Donations to charity spike, and people are warmer towards one another.
At its core, Thanksgiving is a time to be kind.
How to do it right
Is it possible for you to rethink Thanksgiving? The idea might sound scary, but stay with me.
I get it. Changing the intention of Thanksgiving means questioning symbols that are not only familiar, but very dear: time with family, abundance, eating yourself into a food coma, the joy of ripping apart a dead bird.
We are biologically designed to want to stick to what we know, even if it leaves us worse off. Words like “tradition” and “rules” carry an almost God-like weight.
But while change “will take something away…it‘s something that can be replaced”.
Why not start Thanksgiving with gratitude? Think of everyone coming to Thanksgiving dinner, and write down something you appreciate about them. You could share those ideas over a dinner which may or may not be Turkey.
Instead of fighting for a cheap kitchen appliance on Black Friday, why not buy a jacket for someone who looks cold? Or let someone go ahead of you in line.
Sometimes nothing material changes, but the way you think about it does. Maybe your tone of voice is kinder, your willingness to listen more broad.
How can you replace cruelty with kindness?
Thanksgiving is an “invented tradition” in countries too diverse for one standard way of celebrating. As melting pot nations, we are gifted with the opportunity to develop this tradition as humankind grows.
In your time to give thanks, how can you cultivate an appreciation for life that extends beyond the kitchen table?
