Today, it\u2019s not easy thinking\u00a0Thanksgiving thoughts.\u00a0 Like most traditional holidays, it has\u00a0a certain inertia, carried on by the tradition that we should all get together and hang out with family, eat, watch football games, and\u00a0plan on traveling.\u00a0 Other than that, much of the traditional Thanksgiving paraphernalia is more or less just consumer goods with no real concern about its background.\u00a0 In the public schools, I see little brought home that commemorates any historic connections to the event.\u00a0 In my time, hand drawn turkeys that traced my fingers for the feathers, in-class pumpkin pie making, pictures of the Pilgrims trekking through the winter woods, lessons and stories and plays and even old projector movies relating the events of those early days of the Plymouth settlement all reminded us of what the holiday was about. <\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t unusual for us to have a band concert or similar production the day before our Thanksgiving break.\u00a0 Sure, for most of us kids, Thanksgiving break was that tiding over, that pregame festivity that heralded the mack daddy of all holidays, Christmas.\u00a0 Today, that\u2019s called Winter Break.\u00a0 Then, Christian or no, it was Christmas.\u00a0 And even for those of us not in church, we loved every minute of it.\u00a0 Thanksgiving, even more than Halloween, meant the most wonderful day of the year was coming soon.<\/p>\n
Today, of course, due to multi-cultural education and PC sensitivities and censorship, we no longer have such easy recounting of the events of that first Thanksgiving so long ago.\u00a0 Instead, as is usual today, we are reminded of the meaner things, the \u2018genocide\u2019 that arguably didn\u2019t really happen but we learn it that way anyway, the imperialism, the racism, the ill treatment of the Native populations \u2013 all of these become the focus.\u00a0 In deference to any potentially offensive presentation, little to no focus on any traditional Thanksgiving trappings is done.\u00a0 There might be a turkey picture here, or a lesson if the student happens to be in a grade that teaches history there.\u00a0 But nothing major.\u00a0 There are certainly no big celebrations, pumpkin pie feasts, band concerts on Wednesday (or Tuesday), or any such thing.\u00a0 At best \u2013\u00a0and I admit I\u2019ve become happy with the break-even point \u2013 we just stop hearing about the awful legacy of America\u2019s horrendous past for a couple days. <\/p>\n
In fact, with our modern sensitivities, most schools have little to do with this or that holiday formerly known as Christmas.\u00a0 There will be some winter decorations, and of course the break that happens to fall over the last couple weeks of December.\u00a0 But our schools have become wastelands of doldrums and yawns, daring not to celebrate anything traditional lest someone be offended by the references.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
But come January, they will begin winding up for America\u2019s new Holy Day: The Feast of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.\u00a0 They will spend weeks watching films, reading books, drawing pictures, attending assemblies.\u00a0 The hallways will be adorned with his pictures, with quotes, with references to the moments of his life.\u00a0 They will see clips from his March on Washington.\u00a0 They will be told to make the day special, to take in its meaning, to apply themselves to making our world a better place.\u00a0 It will be all the things that the holiday formerly known as Christmas and that other one that is still somewhat special because of family but not because of the horrible legacy it represents, used to be. <\/p>\n
Which goes to show you.\u00a0 Every culture, every generation, every ideological revolution, every nation has its heroes, its holy days, it absolute values that it demands everyone conform to absolutely.\u00a0 Ours today is no different.\u00a0 Having dispensed with the old guard under the auspices of tolerance and sensitivity toward all people, beliefs and demographic\u00a0groups, we now fill the void with new absolute value systems with their teachings and heroes, and bid a gradual farewell to the celebrations of yore that no longer have a place in the post-modern, post American nation in which we live.\u00a0 Happy Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today, it\u2019s not easy thinking\u00a0Thanksgiving thoughts.\u00a0 Like most traditional holidays, it has\u00a0a certain inertia, carried on by the tradition that we should all get together and hang out with family, eat, watch football games, and\u00a0plan on traveling.\u00a0 Other than that, much of the traditional Thanksgiving paraphernalia is more or less just consumer goods with no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n