Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving

In the wake of SBL comes Thanksgiving, and for my family, the beginning of the Christmas season. Wade is preparing turkey for the meat-eaters (I'm allergic to turkey, if you can believe that!), and I have a veggie turk'y roast for the vegetarians. I've decided to try quail myself to see if this is a poultry I might actually not be allergic to. I put together a traditional stuffing that my mom taught me a long time ago when I was a child, and a ironed my grandma's table cloth in memory of her. We will have mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with brown sugar, cranberry sauce, broccoli and baby leaf salad. Apple pie for dessert since Wade is not a fan of pumpkin. The one dish that I cannot make even though it was traditional for me growing up is jello salad with fruit. Sorry Jello Inc. but days of jello salads (and casseroles) are over for me. Some of my students and their families will be joining us for dinner.

And as a special treat, Alexander has learned a table grace that he will sing (to the tune of "On Top of Spaghetti"):

"The month of November,
has Thanksgiving Day,
we gather for dinner,
watch football and play.
With turkey and stuffing,
and cranberries too,
we are thankful for family
and friends just like you."

Happy Thanksgiving all!

4 comments:

andrewbourne said...

Sorry April Why? America has nothing to celebrate surely a sense of humility and asking of forgiveness from the rest of the world, Iraq, Afghanistan, Mumbai and guantanamo I have difficulty with the American pysche in celebrating when you have a great need for humility

Unknown said...

Why celebrate? Because as bad as things are, they are pretty good too. Sorry andrewbourne but you seem to be stuck in black and white thinking- things, people, nations, are either all good or all bad. That's not the case. Sure, there are things I regret my government doing, but America is doing some amazing things in the wide world too. Digging water wells, teaching children to read, standing up for women's rights. How about the rest of the world asking America for forgiveness too? The slaughter of the Mandaeans, the attacks on Israel, the attack on World Trade Center in NYC and so on. No one is perfect and to claim that big bad America is the bane of the humanity while the rest of the kind commpassionate world looks on in pity is as blind and delusional as anything else Samael has managed to come up with. btw andrewbourne what's the name of your archon?

Richard B signing off

Mark D B said...

andrewbourne:

I think you misunderstand what Thanksgiving is about, and why we celebrate it. Richard speaks to the point very well. Thanksgiving is not about boasting, saying, "Oh wow, look how great things are for us! Hahah!"

If you know anything about the mythology of Thanksgiving, and the reasons for it, you understand that we come together with our families and friends, despite whatever is going on in our lives, to be with the people we love (even if they sometimes drive us crazy). We reflect and celebrate the fact that we're together. We come together to celebrate that there is always something to be thankful for, even if things aren't exactly as you would hope. We come together to appreciate our friends, our families, and what we have, even if it's it not much, perhaps even especially if we don't have much. There is almost always someone or something for which we can be appreciative and thankful. In that regard, if there is anything lacking in the American psyche when it comes to Thanksgiving, it's not humility.

g. wesley said...

It was wonderful. Thanks again. Grant