You’ve likely seen Lucy hold the football for Charlie Brown to kickoff at the annual thanksgiving day game, only to pull it away. His backflop, pain, humiliation, and despair have been felt by many. Once after completing her gag play on our poor comic friend, she states, “Isn’t it peculiar Charle Brown, how some traditions just fade away?” While she meant the tradition of a successful kickoff, we may think of the disappearance of our own observances.
Do you remember when Thanksgiving Day was quiet? Time stood still. The only working machines were ovens for cooking and vehicles for traveling to family. Stores were closed. Life ceased, much like Sabbath days in times past. I recall the whole day being set apart for a meal, conversation, family, and the always included friends with no place to go. During table talk, many reasons for giving thanks were topic for conversation. After the meal, with nowhere to be, we often sat around in a turkey-induced stupor.
In the last two decades, at least in my experience, Thanksgiving Day has been hijacked by early holiday sales and sports. I’ll freely admit to standing in line one evening ten years ago to purchase a tablet offered on a sucker-deal. College sports captures our household all season long, so the special holiday tournaments and turkey day games keep our televisions lit up. We celebrate differently as we enter into new eras of life.
Our forefathers, having escaped religious persecution in their homeland, survived a long ocean voyage to America, as well as a trying year of pioneer life. They took time to acknowledge God the creator-sustainer (Psalm 104) and all of the benefits provided them. (Psalm 111) We also should pause to give thanks to God for a year of ups and downs, blessings and curses, losses and crosses, triumphs and tribulations, and crucibles and crowns. (Job 2) Every bit of life, good and difficult, is from our wise God’s gracious hand. (Romans 8) While minor shifts occur in the areas of holiday victuals and entertainment, never let fade your duty to “give thanks to the Lord, for he is good”. (Psalm 136)