If holidays had families, Thanksgiving would be the unwanted stepchild. Thanksgiving lacks the Hallmark beauty of Christmas and the Dick Clark fun of New Year's. With stern-faced buckle shoed pilgrims as the holiday's heroes, nobody decorates their home with Mayflower lights. Nor do we take part in Puritan parties. Thanksgiving doesn't lend itself to much of that, so we don't lend much of ourselves to it. Thanksgiving really is the overlooked stepchild.
Consider the way Thanksgiving is treated at national retail stores: hardly at all. Outnumbered by mountains of Halloween candy and masks, Thanksgiving is lucky to get a small display of any kind. And because this stepchild holiday has the misfortune of falling so close to Christmas, it must be picked up, packed up and swept up…to leave room for Christmas.
But the real problem with Thanksgiving isn't the way it's treated in our stores. It's how it’s treated in ourselves. Gratitude—the core message of Thanksgiving–is neither fun nor easy for most of us.
- Gratitude demands intentionality.
- Gratitude demands humility.
- Gratitude runs against the grain of our prideful self-sufficient selves.
Who likes a holiday that requires effort?
What fun is there in self-discipline and intentionality?
How can we get “unbooked” from the annual guilt trip we face, knowing we’re honestly not that thankful—at Thanksgiving or ANY time of year?
But I think we're asking the wrong questions.
What we SHOULD be asking is “What is it that really made the pilgrims tick?” “Where could WE get a supply of their indomitable courage—the stuff that lead them to leave everything behind to follow Christ?”
Experienced in that light, Thanksgiving—the unwanted holiday stepchild—might just be one of the grandest of them all.