Happy Thanksgiving. Today is the day for which gratitude was made.
I don’t mean that in a traditional sense, in that the last Thursday of November has rolled around. I mean that in the sense that this day, the 27th of November 2008, is a day for which gratitude was made.
There are several reasons for this. First, we have finally entered a season of political hope, after years of despair. Second, those years of despair, as they come to a close have pitched us off the economic cliff so long predicted and that, in its own strange way, is cause for gratitude.
Not that anyone is grateful for hard times and layoffs and home foreclosures. Any catastrophe, anything that reduces the number of items on the list when the time comes to count our blessings, makes us more keenly grateful for those items that remain.
I was in Louisiana last week, in St. Bernard Parish, which was hit so hard by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In mid-September of that year, in Meraux I met Carol Emery and her family. They were returning for the first time to their ruined home. Everything they had was gone, but gratitude remained.
Ms. Emery’s first words to me were of gratitude for the safety and health of her family. Then came the gratitude for the help they had been given. She said she’d never before accepted help and she was glad it was there when she needed it.
Next she spoke of Thanksgiving and how her extended family always gathered at her house every year. She did not know how should accomplish it that year, but she was determined to bring everyone together just the same. The house was not important, the gathering was.
This year, Thanksgiving is stripped to the essentials: family, friends, safety, food and shelter. Social scientists who attempt to measure happiness say real indicators are: health, the proximity of loved ones and leisure time. All through the post-war decades of the 20th century, as we grew wealthier and acquired more things, our happiness quotients leveled off once we had enough food and health care and a three-day weekend now and then.
Perhaps this is the year when we realize that happiness does not come through a cable into a flat-screen tee vee. Better still will be if those of us who can still afford flat-screen tee vees share that money instead with people who lack the food shelter and health care that comprise the elements of basic happiness.
So this is the day for which gratitude is made. It’s easy to be grateful when life is all sunshine and winning Lotto tickets. Tomorrow is so-called “Black Friday,” when retailers have all their annual bills paid and make nothing but profit through the rest of the holiday season. Economists and politicians will be watching nervously. Many retailers did not have their annual overhead covered by close of business yesterday and this holiday season will not be bright for them.
Consumer activists have long asked Americans to consider the day after Thanksgiving to be “Buy Nothing Day,” to protest our consumptive culture. They’ll get more traction tomorrow than usual, but out of necessity rather than protest.
Most of us, who are neither retailers nor consumer activists, have a chance to eat a meal and reflect on the year behind, the year ahead. May we be grateful for the good things we have.
What We are About to Receive
Happy Thanksgiving. Today is the day for which gratitude was made.
I don’t mean that in a traditional sense, in that the last Thursday of November has rolled around. I mean that in the sense that this day, the 27th of November 2008, is a day for which gratitude was made.
There are several reasons for this. First, we have finally entered a season of political hope, after years of despair. Second, those years of despair, as they come to a close have pitched us off the economic cliff so long predicted and that, in its own strange way, is cause for gratitude.
Not that anyone is grateful for hard times and layoffs and home foreclosures. Any catastrophe, anything that reduces the number of items on the list when the time comes to count our blessings, makes us more keenly grateful for those items that remain.
I was in Louisiana last week, in St. Bernard Parish, which was hit so hard by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In mid-September of that year, in Meraux I met Carol Emery and her family. They were returning for the first time to their ruined home. Everything they had was gone, but gratitude remained.
Ms. Emery’s first words to me were of gratitude for the safety and health of her family. Then came the gratitude for the help they had been given. She said she’d never before accepted help and she was glad it was there when she needed it.
Next she spoke of Thanksgiving and how her extended family always gathered at her house every year. She did not know how should accomplish it that year, but she was determined to bring everyone together just the same. The house was not important, the gathering was.
This year, Thanksgiving is stripped to the essentials: family, friends, safety, food and shelter. Social scientists who attempt to measure happiness say real indicators are: health, the proximity of loved ones and leisure time. All through the post-war decades of the 20th century, as we grew wealthier and acquired more things, our happiness quotients leveled off once we had enough food and health care and a three-day weekend now and then.
Perhaps this is the year when we realize that happiness does not come through a cable into a flat-screen tee vee. Better still will be if those of us who can still afford flat-screen tee vees share that money instead with people who lack the food shelter and health care that comprise the elements of basic happiness.
So this is the day for which gratitude is made. It’s easy to be grateful when life is all sunshine and winning Lotto tickets. Tomorrow is so-called “Black Friday,” when retailers have all their annual bills paid and make nothing but profit through the rest of the holiday season. Economists and politicians will be watching nervously. Many retailers did not have their annual overhead covered by close of business yesterday and this holiday season will not be bright for them.
Consumer activists have long asked Americans to consider the day after Thanksgiving to be “Buy Nothing Day,” to protest our consumptive culture. They’ll get more traction tomorrow than usual, but out of necessity rather than protest.
Most of us, who are neither retailers nor consumer activists, have a chance to eat a meal and reflect on the year behind, the year ahead. May we be grateful for the good things we have.
© Mark Floegel, 2008