I was in college, I think, when Thanksgiving became my favorite holiday. There was something about the rich reward of a joyous feast near the end of a long and difficult semester that made the Fourth Thursday in November all the more rewarding. My last year of college, I had three papers totaling some 65 pages due the Friday before Thanksgiving, and so a week off for the holiday was especially welcome that autumn.
Ever since, I’ve tried to make Thanksgiving something more than just a perfunctory family get-together. Much like Christmas, Thanksgiving has its season. It’s shorter, to be sure. And less commercial. But there’s still something about preparing for Thanksgiving that makes me happy.
These days, I usually start thinking about turkey day around the middle of October, sometime around or just after our Canadian friends celebrate the holiday. Not long after, the leaves transform from pale yellow and orange to rich earthen browns. There’s the early November visits to Longwood Gardens, where the Chrysanthemum Festival delights with its charming autumnal palate. By Thanksgiving Day, those fall flowers are long-since replaced with the premature poinsettias of Christmas yet to come. Even then, the crisp air and welcome floral fragrances live in my memory as much as the warm aromas of Thanksgiving dinner itself.
As Thanksgiving Day approaches, there’s that hurried period of decorating tables and making favorite recipes that creates its own form of camaraderie. And then finally it’s Thanksgiving Eve, when people across the country are busy coming home. In New York, they’re inflating balloons for the Macy’s Parade while hoards of happy children seek a glimpse of their towering figures.
The last couple of years, I have spent Thanksgiving Eve in church. To be sure, Thanksgiving is not a holiday on the Christian calendar, but for my congregation it’s an opportunity to share blessings with one another as we reflect on God’s mercy, goodness, and grace. Soon, the sanctuary will be decorated for Christmas and the church will be busy with Advent services and choral tributes. Yet Thanksgiving is the perfect opening to the season, and also the ideal counterpoint: whereas the First Sunday of Advent represents the opening of the Christian year, Thanksgiving Eve comes at its end. It’s an evening for quiet reflection, but also of hopeful gratitude that only comes from Christ Jesus.
I usually sleep soundly on Thanksgiving Eve, as snug as the fruit of the harvest stuffed into a cornucopia. And when I wake in the morning, I typically take a short walk before settling in to watch the parade at nine o’clock. From there, everything happens as you might expect: there’s family and football, favorite foods and fine memories. Though I have found that when you anticipate this day weeks ahead, you appreciate it all the more. It’s almost as though you can slow time down, and for just one day, truly appreciate the simple aspects of life that reflect the common grace that our creator gives all of us.
So this Thanksgiving, I encourage you to reflect and pray and to savor all the more the simple joys God has given us. To every thing there is indeed a time and season (Ecclesiastes 3:1), and the season of Thanksgiving is an opportunity for us to experience the Lord’s blessing as we look forward to our eternal joy.