Thanks given by Trish Smith

Thanks given.

Last Thursday was Thanksgiving in America, a holiday that has apparently taken on greater significance than Christmas in terms of an annual family celebration.  The days before Thanksgiving are the busiest days for travel as everybody heads home for turkey and candied yams.  The days following are the busiest for shopping, as everyone stocks up on bargains to put under the Christmas tree in a few weeks.  In Australia of course it doesn’t rate a mention, with the end of November really just marking the start of the crazy season and a reminder to get going with those gosh darn Christmas cards.

On Saturday last week I was in Queensland for my father in law’s birthday party which featured a huge gathering of friends he had made on various overseas postings.  Among the guests were a couple from California, and they asked that Saturday night be set aside for a Thanksgiving celebration. 

I have been to America a few times, and on one of those visits I was there for Thanksgiving.  I was backpacking around with a couple of school friends, and we found ourselves on campus at Princeton University during Thanksgiving Week.  The place was a virtual ghost town; everyone had gone home for the holiday.  If memory serves we stayed in a youth hostel and ate in because all the restaurants were closed.

So I was looking forward to Thanksgiving on the Gold Coast, because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.  The guests from California bought garlands of plastic corn and pumpkins to decorate the table, as well as home-made napkin rings featuring more corn and pumpkins.  Maddie had asked me what Thanksgiving was all about, and I had told her it had something to do with the Pilgrims and corn.  Clearly I wasn’t entirely certain about it, and she hadn’t quite bought my story, but the corn on the table was proof enough that her Mummy was really quite clever after all. 

Fourteen of us gathered around the table for Thanksgiving dinner of turkey, ham and various delicious salads.  There were no candied yams.  I was hoping for one of those big dishes covered in pink marshmallows that I had seen on television once but when it’s 35 degrees outside nobody much feels like eating sweet, hot vegetables.  There were speeches beforehand, as the guests all remarked on how fortunate they were to be able to come from all over the world to help celebrate my father in law’s birthday, and throughout dinner we all tried to answer a clever conundrum that one of the guests gave us to solve:

What is greater than God, more evil than the devil, the poor have it and the rich don’t need it, and if you eat it, you will die?

After dinner someone brought out a piece of paper with a grid on it, set out a little like a Scrabble board but without the triple word scores.  In the middle of the grid was the word THANKSGIVING and it was passed around with a pen, and we all had to add, in one word, what we were thankful for.  In the end it went around a couple of times, and we ended up with a wonderful list of life’s simple pleasures and joys. 

I have decided that we will celebrate Thanksgiving every year from now on.  I’m not sure that we will do the whole turkey and ham thing (November is just too hot, and turkey is just too Christmassy) but I like the idea of getting together with family and friends to celebrate what is good in our lives and to be thankful for things like health and happiness.  I am not a religious person so in our house Christmas really is all about the presents.  There are toasts at dinner time where we wish each other Merry Christmas and good health for the new year, but this notion of being grateful and thankful for the things you have (aside from the things under the tree) is a lovely notion and I would like to celebrate it some more.  Christmas is a tricky time to try and get the whole family together because we all have partners with families and there’s only one December 25th to go around.  If we can add Thanksgiving to our calendar, whether we do it in November or some other time during the year, then we will have another day, away from the craziness of the holiday season, where we can appreciate how lucky we are to be living in this country of abundance and peace and freedom.
My Christmas cards this year feature a picture of the girls at Floriade, and a quote attributed to a seven year old boy who was asked “what is love?”  He said “Love is what is in the room at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.”

So here’s to giving thanks, to love, and to sitting quietly at least once a year and being aware of how lucky you are.

Trish.

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