Sociologists believe that the rituals practiced in any given culture serve to reaffirm that culture’s most important values and beliefs. (Cole)
As I write, Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching — a week from today it will be here, bringing Christmas quickly in its wake.. One of our most uniquely North American holidays, it supposedly celebrates the earliest settlers’ valiant struggle for survival, freedom, and prosperity. What it has come down through the years to mean to us today seems so wonderfully and crazily representative of our wild and wacky culture — masses of food and eating jokes (or issues); family joy, dysfunction, and awkward moments (and issues); children coloring turkeys with every tail feather a different color and wearing scotch-taped-together Pilgrim hats; hunting season (here in the mountains it’s time to tie orange vests on your cows and dogs and go about shouting “there’s people here, by gum!” as we try to avoid the shots echoing up and down the mountain); football madness; decorating for Christmas; Black Friday and Cyber Monday; butchering (here in the mountains again); over-the-river-and-through-the-woods-to-grandmother’s-house-we-go kind of traffic (made even more scary by the stat that more booze is sold on Thanksgiving Eve than any other day of the year); and so many more images and rituals that contemplating them all makes one kinda dizzy.
Like a huge pot of richly simmering stew with so many different ingredients that you can’t count ’em, just like this wonderful country of ours — that’s Thanksgiving! Beyond all the recent rancor in our country, each of us and our unique traditions are all part of that stew — isn’t it great?? We’re in it together.