Thanksgiving Food for Thought

Last year in Sydney, I hosted my own Thanksgiving dinner for the first time. I was so proud of this American holiday and the traditions that accompany it that I wanted to share it with everyone I knew in my new city. Friends from the UK, Canada, France, Sweden and the US were present. The menu wasn't impressive or traditional. However, we shared our potluck dishes, crowding around my tiny living room, and we all wrote what we were thankful for in chalk on the wall. While I was grateful to be in an amazing city surrounded by good company, my homesick thoughts wandered to a table thousands of miles away, where my grandmother's turkey and dressing and pumpkin pie sat encircled by my family members.

Being in Australia meant I wasn't able to watch my college football team win their big game or see the skyscraper-sized balloons float down 6th Avenue in New York. It also meant that I wasn't bombarded with commercials and email blasts about the upcoming Black Friday sales and doorbuster savings. There are no Walmarts in Australia, and I was a backpacker with few real needs and little means to buy nice gifts for others. Without the incessant notifications and ads to serve as reminders, I sort of forgot about this part of Thanksgiving altogether.

And it undoubtedly has become a part of the holiday. Thanksgiving is no longer a four-day weekend to relax and spend time with family, or even a full day of rest. For many employees of major retailers, Thursday has become a day to prepare for or even begin the mad rush of holiday shopping. With stores opening earlier each year, it seems our beloved Turkey Day has simply turned into a kick-off event for a month-long feast of consumerism. We're now encouraged to shop on Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. (If you haven't experienced the madness of Black Friday shopping for yourself, it only takes about 30 seconds of this YouTube video to get a feel for it.) 

Last year, the United Nations Foundation and the 92nd Street Y in New York teamed up to launch a campaign called #GivingTuesday. The mission is to "create a national day of giving at the start of the annual holiday season." While I think it's a great idea to encourage charitable giving and support nonprofit organizations, it also makes me sad that it's been tacked on to the tail end of a weekend of overindulgence, as if Giving Tuesday is the juice cleanse for our extravagant holiday dinner. 

What if Thanksgiving was about giving just as much as it is about food, parades, football and shopping? What if our "giving of thanks" was not reduced to a single meal or even a day, but was perpetual? I want to learn to wake up every morning with a grateful heart and count my blessings each night as I fall asleep. And maybe if we all strive to be better at this--to be more mindful of the things we do have, we'll worry less about the things we don't, and give a little more.