Giving Thanks

The following is an email I sent my family last Thanksgiving and I like it so much I want to share with everyone who reads Flower Blog this Thanksgiving.


As a child I was taught that the first Thanksgiving happened when the pilgrims and Indians sat and feasted together. Both parties brought food to share and they were all thankful for the companionship. In elementary school we made pilgrim hats and Indian feathers out of construction paper and sat pilgrim next to Indian at the school’s Thanksgiving lunch.

As an adult I’ve been taught that meal or no meal the pilgrims murdered many Indians and stole their land. I’ve been taught to refer to Indians as Native Americans as if that somehow makes amends for the sins of my ancestors.

The true origins of Thanksgiving are fuzzy to me and I find it difficult to describe the reason for the day to my non-American friends. The lesson generally leads to stories of how poorly the Native Americans were treated by the first settlers, a part of American history I’m not particularly proud of.

Tomorrow I will join 20-plus friends for a meal. We will be American, Australian, English, and South American and we will eat, drink, and be merry together. Regardless of whether or not the first Thanksgiving went the way I was taught as a child, regardless of the messiness that came later, I hope to show them that this is what Thanksgiving is about.

Because that is what this holiday is about, isn’t it? It’s about family, friends, and feasting. It’s about coming together and reminding ourselves that, despite the doom preached on the news, we have so very much to be thankful for. And this year, more than years past, I can’t help but feel hope. Hope that in small ways, like a meal where African refugees eat with white Americans, this is the place those pilgrims hoped it would be. A country where change is possible and the dreams of our forefathers are still tangible.

And for that I am very thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving.