Misgivings at Thanksgiving
November 28, 2019
As I write this I am settling in to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving for the umpteenth time. Every year I watch it, I see something I did not see the previous 49 viewings. This year was no exception as I watched this fun, classic cartoon rendition of Thanksgiving with the Peanuts Gang. This year I realized how many MISGIVINGS we can have at THANKSGIVING.
Peppermint Patty, one of Charlie Brown’s friends, had some misgivings about Thanksgiving. Initially, she did not have a place to go for the holiday, so she invited herself and a “plus two” to Charlie Brown’s house where Snoopy and friends whipped up toast, pretzel sticks, jelly beans, and popcorn for dinner. Of course this gave Peppermint Patty additional misgivings about the holiday. Her clearly pronounced disappointment about the menu caused her to wonder what “blockhead” prepared the meal and didn’t include the turkey and the mashed potatoes? After all, that’s what Thanksgiving was all about!
Where’s the turkey? The mashed potatoes?
I’m not sure that Peppermint Patty is correct about the meaning of Thanksgiving, but I know it is not about her misgivings. Nor is it about the misgivings that I recently heard on a radio program dedicated to surviving Thanksgiving. People called in about all types of anxiety: relatives who might monopolize the conversation, and various potential scenarios that could ruin the holiday. The therapist talked the callers off the ledge by suggesting, “Be aware of what could go wrong and DEAL WITH IT.” How much do you think that advice was worth?
Would that our deepest misgivings about Thanksgiving only be about toast and popcorn rather than turkey and potatoes, and the possibility that we would have to sit next to our loquacious great, great uncle, with halitosis, during the meal! But that is not the case for many of us. Often our misgivings go very deep to the empty chair around the table, a broken relationship, a lost job, a lost level of health, or … (fill in the blank).
Giving thanks is not complicated, but perhaps Thanksgiving can be! Even so, maybe we can acknowledge the potential misgivings, superficial and profound, that are often associated with this holiday and GIVE THANKS anyway!
“In everything
give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”
I
Thessalonians 5:18
Happy Thanksgiving!
Sheryl