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Originally Posted by Merlin

Dear americans,

No google or wikipedia answers I want this from your own personal perspective . .

Thanksgiving . . Explain this to me please. And what does it mean to you ? X x

What Thanksgiving means to me has changed over time. When I was a kid, it was all about the Pilgrims and Squanto, the Autumn Harvest, four days off school, eating the best food on earth bar none, and trying to stay the heck out of the way because my mother was a crazy woman.

When I was a teenager, it was about church and then a big stress-filled family dinner, involving impossible cleaning schedules, impossible cooking schedules, waaaayyy too many relatives crammed into the space allotted, a screaming mother, eating two hours after the scheduled time, and the best food on earth bar none. (You might imagine I had some mixed feelings about it all by that time.) I still believed in the Pilgrims and Squanto and I still recognized the Autumn Harvest.

When I was a young adult, Thanksgiving involved walking in on this stress-filled scene three quarters of the way through when my partner--who was persona non grata--dropped me off, to then go on to her own much calmer family dinner where I was persona non grata. I still believed in the Pilgrims and Squanto and the Autumn Harvest, and I still ate the best food on earth bar none.

When I was in my thirties I said no more family angst and learned to roast my own turkey--the one thing I hadn't already done--and my partner and I stayed home by ourselves. I had learned the truth about the Pilgrims and Squanto by then and had done some serious reading of accurate history; I felt guilty with every bite, even as I did my best to remember those who died as well as giving thanks for my own blessings and the Autumn Harvest while I ate the best food on earth bar none.

When I forty-four I lost everything that had meaning for me except for Ladybug and my online community. I was forced to move back in with my mom as a charity case. I discovered then that Thanksgiving had a meaning for me that I had never articulated before: it wasn't about where I was, or whom I might be with; it wasn't about where I lived or whether had my own place; it was entirely about what I did. Thanksgiving was cooking the best food on earth bar none, decorating the house, bringing the gift of "holiday" to the people I fed. I still remembered those who had died, I still counted my own blessings and acknowledged the Autumn Harvest, and I still felt guilty with every bite.

When I was 49 I moved to Kansas and made my home with Gryph, who has native American heritage and who did not celebrate Thanksgiving. I listened to his music and read more accurate history and nearly perished from the guilt of it all............

...............and I subverted Gryph anyway and cooked Thanksgiving dinner for him.

Because you know what the best food on earth bar none is, the traditional food of Thanksgiving in the US? It's the gift of thousands of years of Native American farmers and gardeners, a gift to the world from the continents of the Americas--turkey, cranberries, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, green beans, corn, wild rice, tomatoes, winter squash, chestnuts, pecans, pumpkin.

The Autumn Harvest is the gift of the First Nations to us, and so every year as I give thanks for my own blessings, I give them on what I call First Nations Day and Gryph and I celebrate with the best food on the face of the earth bar none. I still feel an everpresent sadness and anger at what has happened to the first peoples of these continents, but I no longer feel guilt over celebrating the bountiful harvest of Autumn, just gratitude to the first farmers for their incredible gift to the world.