Sometimes I think I am living on a foreign planet. All of the familiar traditions that I grew up with have vanished and I don’t know how to participate in or adapt to the ones that have replaced them. “Friendsgiving”, for instance. I barely know what it is, let alone the requirements for how it should be celebrated.
I do know that it is a substitution for the tradition of families celebrating Thanksgiving, which no longer seems attractive or viable due to our living so far apart and isolated from our families. In spite of leaving behind most of our family traditions, the younger generations still long for connections.
We used to have that in family. The nice thing about family gatherings is that we know each other. All of our foibles are familiar. The red-neck brother and leftist cousin who will always argue about politics, and then hug and sit down next to each other at the table. The other cousin who does not know what being on time entails, who will show up with a cold dish just as we have finished cutting the turkey. The aunt who strives for perfection. The clumsy one who is always spilling gravy on the white tablecloth. The one who bakes the most amazing pies. All of these have a place at the table and it would not be the same, it would not be family if even one failed to show up.
Try to replicate that with a bunch of friends or strangers. When I was young and just out of college, I ignored family Thanksgivings for a few years. A few friends and I tried to cook a turkey that never tasted like the one that grandma or my mother made. We may have thought that we were sophisticated, citizens of the world, but nothing came together in the same way that it did in my grandmother’s kitchen. It wasn’t too long before I began sheepishly appearing at family holiday celebrations. They weren’t the same without family.
I remember all of the holidays that we celebrated while we lived in New Jersey and Memphis. We were usually surrounded by friends. The food and conversation was good, but it was not family. We eventually found ourselves making the trek back to Kansas City for Thanksgiving and Christmas most of the time, just because that’s where family was.
These days, it seems like we’re losing the nuclear family. With it, we’re losing the traditions that can be passed on to another generation. Grandma’s pumpkin pie recipe can only be passed down within the family from generation to generation. It would be lost and changed until it is unrecognizable in the context of a group of friends.
I realize this when I glance through all of the magazine articles about Thanksgiving dinner this year. Nothing is as I remembered it. It’s as if everyone is trying to make their recipe the most creative and memorable. Who needs fifteen variations on pumpkin pie or pumpkin pie with a chocolate cookie crumb crust. Who needs bourbon spiced sweet potatoes or stuffing with ingredients you can’t find at your local grocery store?
Thanksgiving is not the time to impress people with your gourmet skills. It is not the time for a champagne celebration. It is not a time to substitute friends and acquaintances you have known for a few months for those who have experienced your entire life with you.
It is only among those who know us best: those who have watched our struggles and viewed our successes, those who have known us at our worst and at our best, those who have cheered us on when everyone else thought we would fail, that we can truly give thanks. They are the ones who have witnessed the grace poured out on our lives and who know truly how much we have to be thankful for.