The beauty of November...

Pumpkins still adorn the outside of this old house of mine. Not just pumpkins, but orange twinkling lights and long-decayed corn stalks still lean up against trees and old siding as we maneuver between Halloween and Christmas. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays (yes, I said that about Halloween!) and it seems as if it often gets slighted. We go from costumes and carved pumpkins to holiday trees and lights with just nary a thought of the beauty within.

I am not sure I have always loved the beauty of November. Maybe as a kid I was a bit remorseful at the end of summer and the bleakness of the drab landscape. Now, as an adult, I find the beauty of November completely stunning. The night sky is clearer, the leaves crispier, the fires burn brighter. What, I ask, are the colors of November? They are not drab as colorful leaves still cling to the branches waiting their turn to take their final bow and tumble into the pile for jumping or walking or raking. What are the scents of November? I think I could open my back door and the scents of apple pie and hot chocolate and a pot of simmering chili would welcome you any day or evening.

Thanksgiving is our holiday, our American holiday. How did we get here? Let’s look back to the Autumn of 1621 and find ourselves breaking bread at Plymouth, Massachusetts. This is known as the “First Thanksgiving” as 90 Wampanoag joined 52 English folks. We do know by now that the Pilgrims did not land on unoccupied land. It was first settled by Wampanoag. It sounds so wonderful to think of sharing bread and meals and ideas together, but within a generation, the Wampanoag lost most of the territory. We really don’t think of that as we ponder prices, buy our turkeys, put fresh cranberries in our shopping cart, visit with neighbors who are doing the same and go home to fill our kitchens with the best we could find.

Even though it is 400 years later, we do think about that first Thanksgiving. I think all first-grade classrooms make turkeys and Pilgrim hats! Isn’t that where you first learned of it? How is it we are still celebrating all these years later the bountiful harvest?

On October 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation about observing a day of Thanksgiving. Of course, this came right in the middle of the Civil War. Maybe his thoughts were to unite the country? He made the proclamation as the last Thursday in November following the harvest. Move ahead to the year 1939 to the last Thursday in November. The country was deep into a depression and President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to move the date of Thanksgiving. He chose the second to last Thursday to move this day to extend the shopping season to help out with the economy.

Sixteen states decided not to change so for two years Thanksgiving was held on two different dates! I am sure that must have been very confusing! Finally in 1941, Congress did pass a law stating that Thanksgiving would be celebrated throughout the land on the fourth Thursday in November.

Even though Thanksgiving gets slighted, we celebrate in big ways! The Macy Day parade is my absolute favorite, football games, and tables laden with once-a-year specialties! Traditions change, as does everything. When we were kids, we were always at Uncle Dean’s house…always. The men went hunting, the women did the cooking. As a young bride, I celebrated in my first house in Pennsylvania. No one ever told me about the insides of the turkey, and I roasted it all. I was horrified when the time came to carve the turkey and all the insides fell out. Thanksgiving on the farm was always a blessed event. Most everything on our table came from our farm. Again, everything changes.

I surrendered my Thanksgiving table to Aaron and Rachel as they are now the host and hostess for our family gatherings. Oh, not to worry, my kitchen participates to the fullest. I just load up Lola, my Jeep, and off I go over the rivers and through the woods, kind of.

Whatever you do this year or whoever you spend the day with, be grateful. As my friend and colleague, Norbert Krapf, writes, “Give thanks for the wealth of the ordinary rolling in from cloudy gray across prairie green.”

Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours.