There is no one singular definition to the holiday that falls on the forth Thursday of November. It means many things for many different people, who put their own cultural spin on the issue. No one perspective is right or wrong, though one could argue that some positions damage our civil liberties and our environment by promoting the wasteful consumption of goods.

Time of Introspection

Thanksgiving is a time of introspection. It is a time of investigating how we got here, and what our the ramifications of our existence. To give thanks we have to understand who gave us such great gifts, and try to see our failings at the same time. A crop failure might mean a leaner thanksgiving to a subsistence farmer, but it also means he's thankful for all he's gotten. Regardless of what he has on his table, he still has his land and some food to eat. We can take such advise to our own problems in life in counting our losses and gains as individuals.

Soul searching is not an easy task. We are complex people, and some our decisions were limited by the constraints of the times that we live in. Maybe none of us is perfect, but we must give thanks for all that we have gotten. You may have missed the promotion or chance to change the world, but you still have tomorrow to do better.

Giving Thanks to Blue Collars

The one that I have historically focused on is giving thanks to the many working class people that make this holiday and the rest of our society possible: the construction worker and the farmer. This is one vision of the holiday, albeit a limited version of what we should be thankful for having. Both of these people solely provide things for our consumption, and not for our spiritual enlightenment or betterment as individuals. Such people make it possible to see our true selves through technology, but at the same time rob us of our individuality and ability to make our own ways.

The original meaning of Thanksgiving was to give thanks to god for the great harvest he gave us. Few people outside the three percent of society in the farming class can really understand the ramifications of god's great harvest. We get food on our table from the supermarket or farmer's market, but it seems hard to connect our salaries in white collar jobs to what a field can give us to eat. Technology has cut god largely out of the picture. His work in creating a good harvest has been supplemented by the green revolution.

Consumptive Thanksgiving

Consumption of food and goods is the notion of thanksgiving most of us are familiar with having. We get the factory farm turkey, provided by a turkey grower with millions of birds jammed in one place, and we cook up the canned goods that come from the supermarket. Our televisions show the Macy's Thanksgiving Prade, a show of consumption and mass media symbols. We fill ourselves for the all out shopping day of black Friday. There is nothing wrong with this notion of thanksgiving, but it says something about our values as a society.

Maybe it's time that we consider alternative notions. In the diverse land of Thanksgiving celebrations, some people are closer to the land, eating and sharing only things they've planted or harvested themselves. Many people eat venison instead of turkey on Thanksgiving, some along with locally grown vegetables and other trimmings. Some people raise their own turkeys, and even go so far to slaughter the animal for their consumption. Certainly these foodstuffs are better for the environment and make us more thankful as we played a direct role in its attainment.

Time of Family

One of the traditional roles of Thanksgiving is to bring family together, at least one time of the year. It is a time when our often desperate nuclear families return together. This can be a time to resolve conflicts, and to bring together love that has fallen apart over the years. Family is celebrated for once, instead of more individualistic values that dominate the year. Families are a special kind of relation that is not based on state coercion, but on something higher and more personal.

Maybe stuffing our faces with mass-produced turkey and watching the Macy's Prade is not good for us. However, working together in the kitchen, sitting together watching the prade, and eating a single unit brings a degree of unity and freedom not seen other times of the year. Personal relations return for a few hours, replacing the impersonal corporate and governmental relations that dominate our lives the rest of the year.

Conclusions

There is no one Thanksgiving. People do many different things on Thanksgiving based on their socioeconomic status and social location. Some eat turkey, some venison, and some Macaroni-and-Cheese. Many of us like all three foods. There are several commonalties throughout the holiday, including bringing family back together and thinking about giving thanks for all that we have.