My Smart Mouth: An ever lasting and ever changing Holiday

Every American school kid knows the story of the first Thanksgiving holiday, or at least the version of it referenced on cutesy holiday décor and in our first-grade lesson plans.

The reality of the feast that took place in the Plymouth settlement in 1621 and has widely become accepted as the “first Thanksgiving” was probably significantly different than the scenario portrayed in our grade-school Thanksgiving plays.

The pilgrims, essentially a group of religious separatists looking to escape England’s volatile political climate, were no doubt a pitiful lot. Probably unprepared for a hardscrabble life of subsistence in a new and foreign environment, they were much diminished in number by the time they managed to reap their first harvest in the New World. By contrast, their neighbors the Wampanoag prospered - enough so that they saw no threat in the hapless little band of refugees who had landed on their shore and struggled and prayed their way through the winter, losing half of their number in the process. As the remaining pilgrims prepared to celebrate their first Thanksgiving, the Wampanoag, who had no doubt been watching them blunder determinedly,and who probably also enjoyed a good party, decided to join in the festivities.

By all accounts, what followed doesn’t sound too much like a solemn and heavily religious gathering. In fact, the celebration attended by puritanical immigrants and sympathetic neighbors really doesn’t sound that different from my own family’s modern-day Thanksgiving celebrations. It’s likely the men enjoyed hunting and sports while they waited for the women to prepare and serve them a feast of venison, turkey and other local game, washed down all the while by beer.

Thus was born the spirit of Thanksgiving. The surviving pilgrims, who were clearly the strongest of their group and by this point also very strong smelling, welcomed the Natives, their offerings of venison and good will, and declared the occasion a day for giving thanks.

The revelry lasted around three days and featured dishes available locally such as oysters, turkey stuffed with bread and seafood stew.

Although the good will between the Wampanoag and the settlers inevitably dwindled, Thanksgiving was still celebrated throughout most of the United States. States had the right to declare their own Days of Thanksgiving - religious holidays of which there might be several in a season. One by one, starting with New York, the states began to adopt an annual Thanksgiving Day, although there were not uniform in their choice of date. Then, in 1863, President Lincoln responded to pressure from activists and crusaders by declaring a national Thanksgiving holiday, celebrated on the fourth Thursday of each November.

In an attempt to boost the economy at the end of the Great Depression by creating more shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved the holiday to the third Thursday of every November, rather than the fourth. This was an unpopular move and the American public protested so strenuously that after two years Roosevelt admitted defeat and signed a bill into law proclaiming the fourth Thursday of every November to be Thanksgiving Day. Thus, Roosevelt established the modern holiday.

In modern times the day of Thanksgiving – once considered a religious holiday – has become increasingly secular. Of course, many families still pray over their holiday meal before devouring it, but somewhere along the line this mandatory day of thankfulness to God has become an increasingly informal celebration of food, family and football.

While I would have to be dead to care any less about football, I do enjoy spending time with my family, and I love food above all else. So, although I may not be offering up grateful prayers for another year of survival, I do feel myself getting into the spirit of this holiday of gratitude and thanks. Personally, I have a lot to be thankful for – not the least of which are Sylvia Johnson’s tried and true Perfect Pie Crust recipe, a little girl who still think’s its fun to play dress up in vintage dresses with me, memories of departed loved ones that can always make me smile, and a family with whom I can share those memories, in between rounds of Cards Against Humanity – absolutely the least reverent game to ever be invented.

No doubt the pilgrims would not approve of Cards Against Humanity, the self-proclaimed “horrible game for horrible people,” but this is America, where we’re free to be horrid, and the pilgrims certainly weren’t any exception. Just ask the Wampanoag, if you can find any.