The best thing about Thanksgiving is food. Agreed? It has not always been so, nor is food Thanksgiving’s only reason. Canada’s earliest dated Thanksgiving is Martin Frobisher’s 1578 ceremony after surviving a perilous and pioneering northern journey from England to what is now Newfoundland.* Joy for rain, homecoming, or military victory, all play their part in the event’s complex identity.
Pilgrim mothers and political fathers have blended distinct ingredients of safe arrival, bountiful harvest, and historical miscellany into the splendorous feast that now welcomes citizen and alien to its gratifying indulgences. The day still includes acts of worship. But surviving at sea or on land, and garnering sheaves, find ultimate commemoration in this annual banquet whose instantly recognizable logo is a golden horn overflowing with fruits and grain. Yes, the best thing about thanksgiving is food, as strongly witnessed in Canadainfo’s thanksgiving acrostic:
“T for time to be together, turkey, talk, and tangy weather.
for harvest stored away, home, and hearth, and holiday.
for autumn’s frosty art, and abundance in the heart.
for neighbors, and October [sic], nice things, new things to remember.
for kitchen, kettles’ croon, kith and kin expected soon.*
Your feast may not be in October, and it may not involve gobblers. But something about food makes it the climax of celebration. Why? God grant that it be because our meal means feasting with and for Jesus. Feasting that embraces “the least of these” (Matt. 25:40). Feasting that shares with the world, through our table, the Bread that gives life to all (John 6:33).
Can you agree? The best thing about Thanksgiving is food. Because the best thing about thanksgiving is Jesus.
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* From Canadainfo, http://craigmarlatt.com/canada/symbols_facts&lists/thanks giving.html.
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Lael Caesar is an associate editor of the Adventist Review. This article was published November 24, 2011.
