Thanksgiving
Eve
“I
would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that
gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”
G.
K. Chesterton
It's
Thanksgiving eve here in America. Most of us will be involved in preparations for food, feasting and family. For some of us, this will
be a day of excitement and anticipation. For others, dread and
anxiety. Holidays are always a mixed bag.
We
hope and pray that our giving-of-thanks will be justified; that the
gathering and the meal will go smoothly, that Uncle Bob will not
drink too much, and Aunt Sue will not talk too much, and the kids
will not fight. We are hugely disappointed when the things we hope
for do not happen, and we come away from this holiday, which is
supposed to be about gratitude, with anything but a grateful heart.
We
can change that. We can go into it with realistic expectations. We
know some things will go well, and some things will go badly, because
that is life. We know that Uncle Bob will drink too much and Aunt Sue
will not shut her mouth, and the kids will fight, so why not just let
it be what it is. Then, when things go better than expected, we can
feel incredible relief and thankfulness.
Consider
instead the great tales to be gathered! Crazy relatives are the
marrow-bone of stories. Think of this holiday as an opportunity to
conduct “field research.” Ask Aunt Sue, who's going to gab anyway,
to tell you about your mother, or your grandmother, or about you when
you were little. Get Uncle Bob, in his cups, to tell his war stories,
or tales of his four ex-wives (maybe those are the same). Take notes,
or better still, clandestinely hit the tape recorder app on your
smart phone. Don't worry about the food; people will be so engrossed
in the stories, they won't notice that the turkey is burned, and the
green beans are dried out. Serve lots of cranberry sauce to sweeten
things up.
We
can even do a literary comparison—is my deeply Southern family a
Faulknerian novel, a Conroy novel, or perhaps a Eudora Welty? Is your
family more like The Great Gatsby, or The Hunger Games? What about a
good tragedy; maybe a Hemingway? Change your own perception from a
concrete notion of how things “should be,” to the fluidity of how
things actually are, and just let them be. It is our dashed
expectations that cause us pain, and not the behavior of others. Make
something you love to eat, and enjoy yourself. Let the chips fall
where they fall, and give thanks that you are here on this blue
planet, you can gather your crazies around you, and you have food on
your table. Such blessing is enough.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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