Thanksgiving America 2010

As I write this, most of America probably are resting or are already asleep after a tiring day at the kitchen preparing the turkey, baking the cakes, cooking the family favorite gourmet dish, chilling the bottle of champagne or wine, setting up the dinner table, and later--after the Thanksgiving prayer, the cheerful toasts, the best wishes and the warm family feasting--the cleaning up and putting back everything into the pantry and the china and silver cabinets.  

It's likely that Black Friday is already in the clocks of brave souls and are now moving towards the malls, going through their must-buy list, and psyching themselves up to bravely line up in the autumn cold and wait for the stores to open.

May everyone at home or at the shelters had the  

Happiest Thanksgiving Day!

Children thankful for "all things big and small."

A family holiday, as Rockwell portrayed it for all time.

Thankful for "the good things that bring us and keep us together..."

"Thankful, even in hard times."

Giving thanks by making the holiday bright for those in need.

Food for thought.  Was it really a turkey the Pilgrims had on their first Thanksgiving? It could have been eels.  Here's James Prosek telling us all about it in Thanksgiving issue of the New York Times:  

"As the story goes, Squanto — a Patuxet Indian who had learned English — took pity on the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony who had managed to survive that first brutal winter, and showed them how to plant corn, putting a dead fish in each hole where a seed was planted. But before that, before the ground had even fully thawed, he taught them a perhaps more valuable skill: how to catch a fatty, nutritious fish that would sustain them in the worst of winters. And this food item, likely on the table of that first Thanksgiving, would have carried special significance to those remaining colonists. Eels — a forgotten staple of our forefathers. 

"Indeed, eel was the dinner that Pilgrims were given on the very day after they made peace with Massasoit, the sachem, or leader, of the region. The following account is from “Mourt’s Relation,” mostly written by a Plymouth resident, Edward Winslow: “Squanto went at noon to fish for eels. At night he came home with as many as he could well lift in one hand, which our people were glad of. They were fat and sweet. He trod them out with his feet, and so caught them with his hands without any other instrument.”"

Reference: 

Prosek, James. (2010, Nov 25).  Give Thanks for ... Eel?  New York Times Online.  Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/25/opinion/25prosek.html