The gorge-fest is over. Our fall harvest motifs await their cardboard coffins in the attic. Slabs of leftover turkey will soon be slid into the morgues of our freezers.
I’m ready to bury Thanksgiving Day.
Not for being some Eurocentric travesty we shouldn’t be celebrating. Not for its crush of cars clogging airport roundabouts. Not even for it’s manic-depressive deluge of pumpkin lattes. No.
Okay, it’s not really the The Day I want to bury. It’s the ritual, steeped in the desperate —and hapless — pursuit of perfection, a quintessential event demanding flawless choreography. Zero missed flights. Accommodation of dietary needs. The seating chart huddling harmonious factions together. The banishment of political discourse. And, by all means, basting the bird belly-side up.
It’s game on, people! And, damn it, we’re all going to get along and be grateful, grateful, grateful.
For me, this is the real travesty. That the whole of our gratitude (and how well we pull off the pageantry surrounding it) is laid upon the altar of a single day. Missed connection in Denver? Al dente green beans in the casserole? You’ve blown it.
That’s a mountain of pressure under which to be grateful. Too often, the impending Fall Feast heralds dread and gnashing teeth.
Plan B: borrow a page from our pet’s playbook.
Not a cat in the world frets over her coif for company’s sake. No dog minces away in shame upon dropping his slobbered ball at a guest’s feet. Our animal companions are good enough because they’re built that way. They don’t scope out the shortcomings we see in other people — or suspect in ourselves. They’re boundlessly grateful to us for being no more or less than who we are whether it’s the fourth Thursday in November, the first Tuesday in May or the second Sunday in August.
What if we could extend this same charity toward ourselves and others? Be good enough in arriving late, a too-crunchy casserole in hand. Forgive the host who trips over her tongue (or his manners). Plop down next to the sour-faced uncle and dare to say, “Hello.” Check our professional pedigree at the door and take a seat at the kids table to learn the latest memes. Carry these acts of kindness forward day after day to learn how generosity breeds gratitude.
What if we converted our holiday spreads from a proving ground to an open seating we could return to any day we wanted? Invite anyone we wanted. Even those we might not otherwise consider.
We might end up being perfectly good at being good enough — and excel in the realms that matter most.