mhuzzell | Thanksgiving

Growing up, the idea of this holiday always bothered me. Something about a day of feasting devoted, even according to its own mythology, to celebrating the initial generosity of a group of people who were later systematically exploited by the very people they'd helped just never sat quite right with me.

Then, when I was fourteen, I went to a hippie school who I thought might take a similar viewpoint to mine, and maybe boycott the whole affair, but instead they made an even bigger fuss over Thanksgiving than any other group I'd yet encountered. Their view of it was more abstract; not much to do with the history of the holiday, and a lot to do with being thankful for various things. It was essentially a harvest festival, which made a lot of sense for a community that grew most of its own vegetables.

My next school (which, incidentally, also produced a lot of food for itself) took a similar view, and by this time I was happy enough to go along with it -- but since graduating, I've slipped back into my old views of things. It helps that I've spent every Thanksgiving since graduation in the UK. I just can't separate the holiday's meaning from exploitation and genocidal wars in my mind, and so I've mostly done my best to ignore it.

All the same, I've been feeling the lack of a harvest festival. Especially here, where by November it gets SO DARK SO EARLY, and the sun rises so late. They say that mid-winter holidays like Christmas are important because of the light levels and the turning of the year and such -- and to keep people's spirits up through the cold dark winter -- but I find November far bleaker than December. Sure, December is the darkest month, but it's also the month when things start to turn and become light again. November is just a rapid decline into darkness.

That, and I'm homesick. I miss my family, and I miss the food of the US at this time. I've been having cravings for gourds that simply aren't available here -- the vast arrays of heirloom squashes and such that are so readily available back home. Pecans. Sweet potatoes. Sure, the latter are available here, but they're somehow not quite as nice when divorced from the context of family and feasting. It seems like there ought to be some sort of celebration happening to stave off the cold and darkness. Maybe not Thanksgiving, but something.