Thanksgiving should stand alone!

---

That's my new motto. It's been brought out this year in response to the way in which the Christmas sleigh has overrun the Thanksgiving turkey. Now, I like Christmas as much as the next person, but I happen to believe that Americans should spend equal, if not more, time and effort towards preparing for and celebrating Thanksgiving than they do for Christmas. Why, you ask? Because Thanksgiving is truly a national holiday, available to celebration by every single American. Christmas, in contrast, is a religious holiday celebrated by only part of our population (albeit the majority). Thanksgiving should be the time when we come together as a nation and celebrate our common experience of being American, our common stuggle (either by us or by our ancestors) of learning to survive in and find a place in this country. Thanksgiving celebrates what it means to be American: overcoming adversity to build a new life. (I'm sure that right now someone wants to point out that the Native Americans were already here. I think everyone can agree that the Pilgrims would have died a miserable death if not for the help of the Native Americans. Those of us whose families have been in America for generations can pass down that tradition by helping newly arrived immigrants in their quest for a successful new life.)

These thoughts fully struck me last year while I was in China. Almost every Chinese person I know likes to compare the Chinese New Year to Christmas. Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday of the year in China, one where almost everyone returns to their hometowns to spend time with their families and eat a big meal. Last year, I realized why the comparison bothered me. I think that Chinese New Year more closely resembles Thanksgiving than Christmas. When I think of Americans gathering with their families and eating, I think of Thanksgiving. However, Christmas has become so big that people all over the world (or at least in China) think of it as the defining American holiday.

And how easy it is to jump to that mistaken conclusion. Christmas decorations are already up. The TV is full of Christmas advertisements and sale announcements. One radio station started playing Christmas songs 24 hours a day last week. The whole country is focused on Christmas and poor Thanksgiving gets barely a mention - except in the commercials for Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, typically the biggest shopping day of the year when stores open up at 4:00 a.m. (!) and have mega-deals so that people can get their Christmas shopping done.

In my family, we've always had a rule that Christmas decorations can't go up and Christmas music can't be played until after Thanksgiving. And I've decided that I'm going to embrace that rule and continue the tradition, because Thanksgiving should stand alone!

"So, Dawn," you're thinking, "You've been silent for months and now suddenly you post this and don't mention anything about what you've been doing or where you've been?" Yes, I did. So, here's a brief summary of my life over the past 2 months, since I've come back from China: I've moved back to my hometown and am currently staying with my Mom. (Note the choice of the phrase "staying with" over "living with.") I've started a job as the new Library Director at a public library in the next town over (population: 400). Next month, I will also start substitute teaching at the high school that I graduated from. I attended my friend Irina's wedding and saw several friends from grad school. We all had a fabulous time and the wedding was beautiful. I've spent a lot of time figuring out ways to keep warm during the upcoming Iowa winter. I'm already wearing my heaviest sweaters and it's only November! We still have 40 more degrees to drop! Today it snowed for the first time this year and I successfully drove home without sliding into a ditch. And that's about it. I'm enjoying the calm, uneventful life of small-town Iowa. Here's a few pictures to quench your curiosity. Enjoy!

---

Photos

Irina's Wedding
Kavita, Irina, and I
(photo compliments of Ira's friend Mark)

Halloween
Mom and I all dressed up and ready for the Witches' Brew.

The Puppy We Didn't Keep
This little puppy wandered down from the neighbors and we played with him for a day. He was a little bundle of energy and fluff!

Young Buck
This buck came to visit this afternoon. He was very majestic, just like a movie!

Comments

[Nancy]

Ah yes
Ah yes, Thanksgiving is an important holiday and one not to be muddled with half Halloween and half Christmas. It is much more like Chinese New Year than the New Year is like Christmas. Family, family, family was the theme for Chinese New Year in 2001 in Xi'an. I was blessed to be adopted by a Chinese family for the holidays or I would have been sitting totally alone in a room with no one around for a whole week. Did you find that Christmas in China was like Halloween, Christmas , 4th of July, and Mardi Gras all thrown together? I was taken to the Christmas night (eve) parade in downtown Xi'an and the students bought me a mask with feathers (like New Orleans) a Tiara with flashing lights (like Halloween) and we were assaulted by fireworks so often that one of the students had an asthma attack from the filthy air. There were over 1,000,000 people dancing in the streets and throwing fire crackers on each other and wearing costumes! It was really wild. Like nothing and like everything with Santa Claus in the store windows too. But New Year was noisy with fireworks and yet peaceful and calm with love and good food and plenty of family time. Hope you enjoy the library! I am a retired librarian and about to be off to Prague to work for another 5 months in a library there. njpl

[dawninshenzhen]

Chinese Christmas decorations can't be beat, that's for sure! In fact, I brought a few things back that I definitely need to pull out and display in all their sparkly loveliness! I spent one Chinese New Year with friends traveling and we stopped in Qingdao for the actual New Year's Eve and it turns out everything in Qingdao shuts down for the holiday and we had to eat McDonald's for every meal for 2 days. But the firecrackers and burning paper were cool!