Forum: What Are Your Thoughts This Thanksgiving?

Every week on Monday, the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question:What Are Your Thoughts This Thanksgiving?

 Fausta's Blog : Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

It is, as Mark Steyn says,

"...very small scale, very modest, very intimate, very American, and absolutely gets to the key of things, which is thanking God for the blessings of this great land."

Thanksgiving is wonderful in its flexibility:

You can celebrate Thanksgiving cooking and serving at the local soup kitchen, at a restaurant, at home, with your friends, with family, hosting exchange students or other newcomers. You can do the traditional menu, and you can do ethnic dishes; do all the cooking or do pot-luck. You may get all of your family members and your friends helping you, or you may do all the work yourself. You may add other celebrations - birthdays, engagements, anniversaries, even Christmas - if your guests are traveling from far away. You may really dress up for a formal table, or you may have a casual dinner outdoors (as we did this year). Better yet, you can do a combination of all of the above, alternate, make every year different, which I really enjoy. Thanksgiving is about creativity, hospitality, flexibility, warmth.

Indeed, Thanksgiving is a sample of our country's best values.

As for the politicizing of Thanksgiving, I'm all for the simplest, most direct approach. Because that's another good thing about Thanksgiving: to learn that one earns a place at the grown-up table.

The Glittering Eye : I'll delegate my response to Nurse Eye Roll:

It’s that time of year where everyone starts to think of things they’re thankful for and talks about them on social media. Nurses however… we are a different bunch. Every time we go into work, we are thankful. It doesn’t take the month of November to inspire this.

We are not thankful for our massive salaries or bonuses. We are not thankful for predictable jobs where we are guaranteed to finish an entire cup of coffee or get at least two bathroom breaks. We are not thankful for having every holiday off with our families. When nurses think about what they are thankful for, our list looks very different than most peoples’…

We are thankful that we are able to walk, talk, and breathe on our own. We have seen exactly what it looks like when someone suddenly loses those abilities. We have seen the tears stream down patient’s faces, as they are unable to verbalize their feelings. They let their tears fall for their nurses because they don’t want their families to see them struggling.

We are thankful we have jobs with sick time. We see patient after patient come in jobless that has waited until the very last second to come in to have their ailment treated because they cannot afford to pay anything or take time away from work. They wait and pray at home for things to just go away as they become exponentially worse. The man with the pain in his foot three months ago is now having it amputated. The woman with untreated diabetes whose vision was getting blurry earlier this year is now blind. The young mother of four with a respiratory infection that she hoped would go away on its own because she couldn’t take any time off… who is now intubated and sedated in the ICU, in acute respiratory distress syndrome… whose fingers and toes are starting to turn blue and purple from all of the medications she’s getting just to keep her blood pressure up… who is now a DNR.

Read the whole thing. I thought it put matters into a bit of perspective.


Laura Rambeau Lee,Right Reason : With family members working varied schedules we celebrate our Thanksgiving differently every year. We take turns hosting and everyone chips in bringing a favorite dish so no one is stressed or overworked. We enjoy the customary dishes of roasted and/or fried turkey, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes and various vegetables and casseroles, along with the requisite pumpkin, pecan, and apple pies.

What struck me more this year, not just within my extended family but in the wider community, was the overall sense of everyone just going through the motions. We seem to have lost the feelings of thankfulness and celebration usually felt at this time of year.

 What was once a joyful festivity celebrating the pilgrims’ first year in the new world and the promise of a better future has turned into debates over the countless sins and transgressions this country has brought to the world. The left and the media want us to be ashamed we are Americans. Black Friday deals and protests were more important topics of discussion and news reports than remembering why we celebrate Thanksgiving.

 From my perspective there is an overall sense of anxiety among the people; a sense of uncertainty. People aren’t excited or hopeful anymore nor are we permitted to take pride in being “Americans.” The left is succeeding in tearing down the traditions that have united us as Americans. It seems since Obama has become president we got the change he promised, but are losing the hope.

 Well, there you have it.

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