Thanksgiving Thoughts
Nov. 27th, 2008 12:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jim_pJust some random thoughts on the day and my history of it...
I always enjoyed the *trappings* of Thanksgiving... the day off from the normal schedule, the introduction to the holiday season(*), the special foods and mounds of sweeties (my mom *loved* to bake(**))...
...but I'm not so sure of the *theme* of the day. The message I got growing up was that this was not so much "Thanks-Giving" day as it was "You-damn-well-better-be-grateful" day. In other words, it wasn't about what *I* was thankful for, but rather what others believed I *ought* to be thankful for.
It's the way my parents worked, you see. It's one thing to bring a child up to have an awareness of the world around them and to develop good attitudes, but I feel that my parents tried to do that by basically ORDERING us to feel a particular way about something. There was no such thing as "agreeing-to-disagree"... if we didn't feel the "approved" way about something, then that was a defect that needed to be corrected at all costs. Made it damned hard to trust my own feelings and beliefs once I left the nest, let me tell you...
This makes it a little hard to come up with "I'm-thankful-for" lists... how much of the list is my true feelings, and how much is social expectation. I suppose if I quiet the voices I come up with something like this:
(**) I was thinking of my mom today when I was making an apple pie. I just happened to be making the pastry dough in the same bowl my mom used for many years, and one of the deep-dish pie tins I inherited from her kitchen. I remembered how she could crimp a pie crust with a fork with lightning speed, compared to my more plodding efforts. I thought of things I did the same, and things I was doing differently. I crimped with a fork, but docked with a knife (she used a fork). I used cornstarch rather than tapioca to thicken the filling. I made the pastry with half butter and half shortening rather than all shortening. I ground my spices fresh, she used years-old jars from the supermarket.
I always enjoyed the *trappings* of Thanksgiving... the day off from the normal schedule, the introduction to the holiday season(*), the special foods and mounds of sweeties (my mom *loved* to bake(**))...
...but I'm not so sure of the *theme* of the day. The message I got growing up was that this was not so much "Thanks-Giving" day as it was "You-damn-well-better-be-grateful" day. In other words, it wasn't about what *I* was thankful for, but rather what others believed I *ought* to be thankful for.
It's the way my parents worked, you see. It's one thing to bring a child up to have an awareness of the world around them and to develop good attitudes, but I feel that my parents tried to do that by basically ORDERING us to feel a particular way about something. There was no such thing as "agreeing-to-disagree"... if we didn't feel the "approved" way about something, then that was a defect that needed to be corrected at all costs. Made it damned hard to trust my own feelings and beliefs once I left the nest, let me tell you...
This makes it a little hard to come up with "I'm-thankful-for" lists... how much of the list is my true feelings, and how much is social expectation. I suppose if I quiet the voices I come up with something like this:
I'm thankful for:
- My continued health and well-being
- My current employment (and employability) in these economic times
- My intellect, curiosity, and resourcefulness
- My economic situation, head still above water (crossing fingers)
- Having a roof over my head that continues to hold its value
- My spouse, pain though she may be at times :)
- My shop assistant, without whom I could not continue the framing business
- My customers, who make the shop possible
- Music and its place in my life
- Modern technology
- Indoor plumbing
- Garlic
- Chocolate
- My friends, despite not seeing them as often as I'd like (see Resolutions, New Year's)
- A President with a brain
- The useful lessons my parents *did* give me, when teased apart from the dysfunctional ones I never should have gotten
- ...on and on...
(**) I was thinking of my mom today when I was making an apple pie. I just happened to be making the pastry dough in the same bowl my mom used for many years, and one of the deep-dish pie tins I inherited from her kitchen. I remembered how she could crimp a pie crust with a fork with lightning speed, compared to my more plodding efforts. I thought of things I did the same, and things I was doing differently. I crimped with a fork, but docked with a knife (she used a fork). I used cornstarch rather than tapioca to thicken the filling. I made the pastry with half butter and half shortening rather than all shortening. I ground my spices fresh, she used years-old jars from the supermarket.
