Thanksgiving Reincarnations

 Every year around this time I think about how nice it’d be if the U.S. officially evolved Thanksgiving into a national holiday celebrating food & the people we love and who love us. In the context of extreme economic inequality, it would be meaningful to think about where we stand and what we can do to make everyone feel thankful. Maybe it’s as simple as making your grandmother’s favorite food and driving to the nursing home to feed it to her. Maybe it makes sense to sit down with a beloved chosen family for a vegan potluck. Or, maybe it means revolution.

The spread at our ragtag Thanksgiving dinner, Antioch College 2000. My best college friend and I cooked and assembled the whole meal between three different dorms. The first, where we lived, had a kitchen with a microwave and fridge, but no stove or oven. The second, nearby, had an oven where I made the stuffing. The third—all the way across campus—had an oven big enough for the turkey. Somehow, between the two of us, we made it happen. It was my least traditional Thanksgiving celebration, but also the most memorable one by far. There is something lovely about sitting down with a table full of fellow students far, far away from home and actively creating an environment of such bounty and camaraderie.

Click here for my inaugural Thanksgiving piece from 2009, in which I begin to ponder the politics behind the holiday.