Thanksgiving Day by Sandra Russell

 Original Art & Story by (c) Sandra Russell

Thanksgiving Day

Bring what food you can, but above all bring
the three most important things.
 Faith, Hope, and Charity.
This is what Thanksgiving Day celebrates.

Thanksgiving Day approaches and with it more than a little melancholy. People do want that feeling of the perfect family union. For some of us that means a loving white haired grandmother who is the best cook in the valley, smiling and rosy cheeked, able to lift a 20 lb. turkey in and out of an oven, and who has all the pure vanilla ($20 a bottle) and chocolate chips, pumpkins to scrape and transform into pies, sweets, and healthy stuff you could want, (but this healthy stuff also tastes like heaven). It would be nice if a grandpa with a pipe sat in a plaid shirt by a roaring fireplace. In his company a sweet cat, and maybe a collie lies quietly dreaming  on the hearth. Someone just got a new puppy, and he greets you playfully as an old friend?

We have these fancies or some similar expectations. We go visiting not to ‘get away from it all’ but to get it all.  We want to find this warmth, these scents, this bond of sharing. This is a time we expect to live in the moment with a delicious sensual feast. We want time to stand still but also want the past to be there too; we get very nostalgic.

Some of us have family nearby who are close, we have grandparents living and puppies or a sweet cat, maybe a fireplace and a TV. But often some of us are far from ‘home’ - some of us are alone and so feel cheated somehow that this picture is just for other somebody else’s life. Well that could be true.

Consider the first American Thanksgiving and how uncomfortable and afraid the people must have been. No grandpa with a pipe, no collie, no vanilla…Gosh…but what they did have was friendly neighbors who shared fears of starvation in winter and brought them supplies and showed them how to store and prepare unknown grains and meats, nuts and fruit. They had their faith, and they had love in their hearts. So that is the number one thing you need to bring to any potluck you host or attend. True appreciation. Bring what food you can, but above all bring the three most important things. Faith, Hope, and Charity. This is what Thanksgiving Day celebrates. Love and warmth, sustaining the dark and cold winter ahead. Not a bad thing to appreciate.