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Today is Thanksgiving in the United States, and my wife, my daughter, and I will be joining my parents for a large meal and a fun time. My grandmother is down from Iowa for a visit, and I expect my brother, his wife, and my nephew will be at my parents' house for the meal, as well. That's the plan, anyway; it's still a bit early to know how it's going to go--or, really, even if it's going to go.
I do not recall if I have commented on the matter previously, but I feel that Thanksgiving is a vastly underrated observance.
While I am aware that there are some fraught issues with it--typical depictions of invading Puritans and their interactions with the various Native American tribes are wildly inaccurate, including in their depictions of friendliness and enlightenment, and hypercommercialization both suffuses it and elides it--the root of the celebration is to eat a large meal, which seems a good thing and uncomplicated. No gifts are really expected, save the small ones given to hosts at any visit. Cooking and cleanup are chores, to be sure, but far less so than decorating a whole house and navigating around the decorations for weeks associated with Xmas, or cleaning up the candy-induced vomitus or teenager-induced vandalism associated with Halloween. So while there are problems with Thanksgiving, there are fewer than for many or most of the other observances common in the US--and there seems to me to be just as much good.
Admittedly, I am not big on holidays, generally. I'm pretty sure I've noted it before, but I react poorly to the expectation and enforcement of good cheer. I react poorly, too, to the disruption of comfortable routines that get things done, as well as the obligation to take time off not to catch up on things that need doing but to attend to those disruptions. Yes, it makes me something of a curmudgeon; I have long known myself to be one. And that's another part of Thanksgiving that I appreciate; the demands and expectations are somewhat less than for other holidays. There's not much, if any, dressing up for me. There's not much of decorating to do. There's cooking and cleanup, but those happen most days, anyway. There aren't songs to sing or expectations of protestations of faith and fellow-feeling. And if, after the meal is done and the dishes washed, I want to slip away for a quiet bit, I can. And that is worth celebrating.