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Wednesday, November 24, 2004 - 2:43amSanction this postReply
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"So to you and yours, may you savor this opportunity to be thankful."

I never really got excited about the idea of this holiday. The idea of being thankful for a good harvest smacks of mysticism.
 
The first feast wasn't repeated, so it wasn't the beginning of a tradition. In fact, the colonists didn't even call the day Thanksgiving. To them, a thanksgiving was a religious holiday in which they would go to church and thank God for a specific event, such as the winning of a battle. On such a religious day, the types of recreational activities that the pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians participated in during the 1621 harvest feast--dancing, singing secular songs, playing games--wouldn't have been allowed. The feast was a secular celebration, so it never would have been considered a thanksgiving in the pilgrims minds.
The original feast in 1621 occurred sometime between September 21 and November 11. Unlike our modern holiday, it was three days long. The event was based on English harvest festivals, which traditionally occurred around the 29th of September. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set the date for Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November in 1939 (approved by Congress in 1941). Abraham Lincoln had previously designated it as the last Thursday in November, which may have correlated it with the November 21, 1621, anchoring of the Mayflower at Cape Cod.
 
But it seems now to have very religious overtones. You get the impression that most Americans see it as being thankful to God for a good harvest, a good year or a good life.

However, just like Christmas (as Jennifer points out)  it's meaning changes and it becomes a special family get-together, which can be a very nice thing indeed.

Thanks for the article.

Happy Thanksgiving Jennifer :-)


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Wednesday, November 24, 2004 - 5:35amSanction this postReply
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Excellent Jennifer. Thank you. I hear through the grapevine you're pulling in mid to high six figures for this SOLO gig? :)

When religion, and habit is removed, I still get the fuzzies for Thanksgiving. Not being American I had never celebrated it until my mid twenties. Its become a ritual for me these days to celebrate my values, and those I love, and I much appreciate the opportunity to stop and do so.

John



Post 2

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 - 10:48amSanction this postReply
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Jennifer-

Thanks for the article.  LOL!  This will be the first Thanksgiving I will actually celebrate (this Friday)- I'm celebrating most everything this year, since it's year 1 of my own independence.  Strange, perhaps- this is the quintessenal family celebration, and yet I'm celebrating precisely because it's *not* my family.  But of course, we escorts (and we Pagan escorts) have own own sense of sisterhood, and with in San Francisco among libertarians I'll have at least a little family company.

That said, I'm dreading one aspect- partially thanks to Mme. Branden's much appreciated recent article, I've finally brought my weight down to professional standards, and this upcoming holiday is absolutely going to ruin my waistline.  Sigh...

Oh, I did precisely as you instructed regarding wine and have a very appropriate bottle of white wine chilling for the 26th- your advice is much thanked.

Good fortune and my blessings... I've decided to wear bright red and blue to this traditional occasion, with a string of seashells.  Next year, I'll wear pure white.

many regards,
                             u
Jeanine Ring     )(*)(   - "not all those who wander are lost"


Post 3

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 - 11:16amSanction this postReply
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Jennifer, I've always thought that Italians and Jews have a lot in common. Your Thanksgiving is almost identical to my family's (in days gone by) celebration of Jewish holidays -- the gathering of the clan, thirty or more parents, uncles, aunts, great-uncles, great-aunts, nieces and nephews and a total stranger someone brought, huge quantities of food that my grandmother and her eldest daughter spent a week preparing, everyone talking at once, ideas on every subject imaginable circling the table along with a great deal of laughter,and the inevitable nephew expected to grow up to be an arsonist, assuming he was allowed to live that long.

Barbara

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Wednesday, November 24, 2004 - 12:04pmSanction this postReply
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This paisan understands completely.  Worse:  I am half-Sicilian and half-Greek... and both family traditions "suffer" from excess good food, good drink, and a wonderful sense of life.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING Jennifer... and TO ONE AND ALL.

Dr. Diabolical Dialectical


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Wednesday, November 24, 2004 - 5:00pmSanction this postReply
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Thanks for your comments, everyone.

Barbara, you had refugees at the table too?  :)  Last year we had two of them, but one never knows who will walk through the door at the last minute.  For us it is utterly unacceptable for anyone to spend Thanksgiving alone, so there is always another spot at the table.

We typically have a wave of people who arrive for dessert as well.  On occasion I will escape out onto my sister's back porch for a moment of utter quiet, just to breathe, and inevitably I will encounter my brother-in-law, who has sought the same momentary refuge.  We always share a good laugh at our desire to escape from the chaos inside.

Chris, I am willing to bet your house is as loud, if not louder, than mine.  What is it about Mediterraneans that compels them to speak at full volume on a holiday?  Is that written down somewhere?  I did not get a copy of the manual.  I find that a few glasses of champagne is very effective for dulling the roar.  ;)

Happy Turkey Day, everyone.  :)


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Wednesday, November 24, 2004 - 5:02pmSanction this postReply
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I hear through the grapevine you're pulling in mid to high six figures for this SOLO gig? :)

John, that figure is ridiculously low.  You need to find better sources.  ;)


Post 7

Thursday, November 25, 2004 - 6:30amSanction this postReply
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Yes indeed :)

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Friday, November 23, 2012 - 7:14amSanction this postReply
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Myself, I would rather have a dill pickle than a doughnut.  I am not much for sweets.  But I did have a slice of each of the glutin-free desserts: pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and blueberry cheesecake. 

We take food for granted.  As members of grocery co-ops everywhere we have lived - and having served on a board - we see a lot anti-GMO propaganda.  But these huge honey crisps, as organic and locally grown as they are, are not at all like the wild apples of only a few thousand years ago. (See Shrinking the Cat by Sue Hubbell.)  Corn (maize) remains a mystery.  We now no longer believe that it was the result of cross three different grasses, one of which had a different number of chromosomes.  Now, we think that all had the same number...  And we have these huge, yellow ears of sweet corn, all organic and natural, and locally produced... 

My wife made the crust of her pumpkin pie without wheat flour by crushing peacans and almonds with amarinth flour.  Her choice, but it was very exotic when you stop and think about.  I am a big fan of the Middle Ages.  It was not worst of times that Objectivists make it out to be.The European Middle Ages were far in advance of ancient Athens. But that said, as rich and lavish as were the Great Fairs with imported goods and consumer treats, we are lightyears beyond.  We do not have to pickle, salt, or dry food to preserve it.  We can eat it fresh whenever we want... grapes from Chile, red bell peppers from Holland ...  I can be choosy about olive oil... My wife and I have different coffees.  She likes dark roast.  Mine is labelled "Red Dawn."  She will not drink my Earl Grey. She has her own English breakfast tea. She likes apples. I prefer oranges.

If you stop and think about it, to other peoples in other times and places, our lives would seem fantastic and miraculous.


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