I don’t celebrate Columbus Day and try to remind anyone who mentions it that it really aught to be called Indigenous Genocide Day (Yes, that’s a mouthful!) and, unless your a Native American, entail an apology.
I don’t feel the same way about Thanksgiving. I think of it as celebrating nature and a bountiful harvest. Yes, it is too commercialized … but what isn’t. Even Pilgrims and Indians setting down together is okay … right along with turkeys, cornucopias and pumpkins. Native Americans would undoubtedly be better off if they’d let the settlers starve, but that says more about us than them.
I also like to use Thanksgiving to look at the “blessings” in my life. What am I thankful for? Sometimes I am thankful for things that didn’t happened and don’t exist. I prefer to appreciate things that actually happened and did/do exist. That seems to be getting harder.
I am thankful that …
… nuclear war and WWIII have not begun.
… executive orders and presidential signatures are insufficient to implement or rescind actual laws.
… white Americans will soon be outnumbered and equalized.
… more and more people are resisting hate and divisiveness.
… propaganda has (not yet) become news.
… my income and lifestyle are stable and mostly predictable.
… my health is stable and fairly good.
… my debt is decreasing and some big bills will be paid off in 2018.
I am thankful for small things every day that don’t make it onto this list, but I don’t make a daily list either. I think that would minimize the impact of the moments themselves. That may play into my own dilemma: If I plan something too thoroughly, it feels as though I’ve done it and I don’t want to do it “again.”
