Thanksgiving traditions

Our preacher got me thinking as he shared about his and his wife’s family Thanksgiving traditions. Their traditions include gathering at one of the sibling’s home – Jim and Pam are the host this year and they will have 23 members around their table. There are two traditional foods that he really looks forward to each year. One is the old green bean casserole – I would by-pass it during Thanksgiving because I have shared in too many church covered dish suppers where there are normally about five of those blessed casseroles on the table. I just cannot imagine getting excited about it during Thanksgiving, but to each his own. Then he went on to share that one of his all time favorites is a congealed gelatin salad WITH PRETZELS! It caught me so off guard that I actually exclaimed, “What?” out loud in church … but I wasn’t the only one, plus there were several turned heads and numerous bits of laughter. Again, too each their own ... traditions are traditions. What is important is held within the hearts of those gathering together.

I love Thanksgiving traditions. Families getting together have been the mainstay of this celebration. Margaret’s family use to rotate who would host the dinner in their homes and I believe Margaret actually started that tradition. We would be the host every other year and her brother Ray would always bring the turkey or ham. I can remember one year, when we weren’t the host, traveling to Orange City so that we could participate in the fest. On the way home our youngest daughter, Erin, was kind of quiet and then finally spoke, “When can we have Thanksgiving dinner because that wasn’t Thanksgiving dinner!” Actually, she was correct, at least from our traditions surrounding the day. It was more like a covered dish dinner. None of the traditional foods except for the turkey and stuffing was there, plus we didn’t all sit around the table together. The children and youth were first in line, got their food and took off to eat wherever they could find a place. It was an eat-n-run type event. So, sometime that weekend Margaret fixed our traditional meal, we set the table with our china, crystal and silver flatware and celebrated Thanksgiving dinner. Traditions are traditions.

While in Gainesville it dawned on us that a number of single men and women were probably going to be alone during the day so we invited anyone who would like to come to our home for Thanksgiving dinner to come. We furnished the entire meal and had a very enjoyable time together. Our family took on the role of servants making sure that our guests enjoyed their meal and fellowship time. We thought that we would have only the senior citizens, but within the group was young adult who would have been alone during the day. Again, we pulled out our china, crystal and silver flatware. The many men and women (mostly women) had a special Thanksgiving to remember, as did we. In some ways, I wish that we had kept that tradition alive. It was a very special time although it was a lot of work, especially for Margaret the “chief-cook-and-bottle-washer” and yet, if you know my dear wife, nothing thrills her more than spending time in the kitchen and sharing our home with friends.

Traditions are important. They keep memories alive. Growing up in Miami meant that after the meal we would be heading to the Orange Bowl for the BIG high school football game between Miami Edison (Go, Red Raiders) and Miami High (boo-hiss), but it was a traditional game with an attendance that came close to filling the old stadium.

Traditions are important because they tie us together. Family traditions help us celebrate the life we share one with another. Traditions can send the spirit soaring and cause a song to erupt in one’s soul. Traditions can help us mark the important events in our lives. Traditions are the fiber used to weave the tapestry of our lives. When life comes to a close it will be the pictures tucked away in our photo albums and the memories of traditions once observed that will warm us when the world has become cold.

In Romans 14: 5- 9 it states: “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.” (NIV) I particularly like verse 6 in The Message, maybe because one of our “new” traditional dishes is a broccoli/carrot casserole: “What's important in all this is that if you keep a holy day, keep it for God's sake; if you eat meat, eat it to the glory of God and thank God for prime rib; if you're a vegetarian, eat vegetables to the glory of God and thank God for broccoli.” One person’s tradition might be another person’s bane, i.e. green bean casserole. Every day is special and every member of the family is significant. It matters not what is eaten nor the kind of dinnerware used, it is the gathering together with loved ones that becomes the tradition of choice for most of us – especially when are bond together by Lord in love and grace.

Quote for today: Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow." ~ Edward Sandford Martin