Thanksgiving 2025

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone had a wonderful (or depending on your family, bearable) Thanksgiving this year! 

For the first time in several years I made the trek up to my sister's house to have Thanksgiving with her and a few other members of the family who drove in for a few days of celebration. Usually I spend Thanksgiving with my parents back home in Virginia, but I opted for something a bit more lively this year. The drive is quite a long haul, usually around twelve hours or so, but I had been really excited to get back on the open road. There's something about the freedom of driving long distance all alone that sets me at ease. 

No pressure, no obligations. I can fly like a bird in any direction I want. Cruising across several states for twelve hours with a backpack full of clothes and a couple musical instruments is a totally different twelve hours than being crammed like sardines into the family car with several bags of Christmas presents, my brother and parents, and coolers full of frozen groceries that my mom insisted had to join us for the ride. If physicists want to truly unlock the mysteries of time dilation for objects in motion, they need to study family road trips. 

Although I've made the drive before, this was my first time doing it for the holidays. I packed my new Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer onesie, my strumstick, and a Christmas present awkwardly encased in Dolly Parton wrapping paper that has the exact same obviously visible shape, size, and weight as a cast iron frying pan. In case my sister reads this blog before Christmas day, I can neither confirm nor deny that it is indeed a cast iron frying pan. The drive, thankfully, was mundane and non-eventful. And yet, as everything seems to be doing as I build this new chapter of my life, the mundane and non-eventful things wove themselves together to create something magical. Packing my bags and Christmas gifts into the trunk of the car brought back a nostalgic feeling that the holidays were officially afoot. The air was not particularly cold, but the chill in the gentle gusts of wind gave me a feeling of shortening days and frosty nights that triggers a desire to settle down and stay warm. Seeing the families spilling out of cars at the service stations on the turnpike reminded me of an old sense of familial belonging that many holiday memories are built on, a belonging that I've lost on my journey through my human experience, a belonging that is whispering in my ear that it wants me to help it live again.

Thanksgiving this year was a pretty standard one, and I was happy for that. It was exciting to see everyone trickling in, everyone setting up sleeping spots all over the house, and bringing in baked goods, snacks, and other treats. We had drinks, played board games, and sat down together around the table for a wonderful dinner. Some of my favorites were the sweet corn pudding, the sausage balls, and a delicious hearty pie made with potatoes, cheese, and caramelized onions. 

There was one thing that was different at the table this year, but nobody in the world would have noticed it. I decided that this year during dinner, I wasn't going to ask what everyone was thankful for, and that I probably wouldn't ever ask it again. When I was a kid, I would see families on TV or the movies, and someone would say, "Let's go around the table and say what we're thankful for!" And then everyone would say something nice and pleasant and make an attempt to honor the spirit of what Thanksgiving day is all about. I always wished our family would do that, but that just wasn't something our family did. As a kid, it was too intimidating to speak up and suggest it, but it wasn't really a big deal. At some point in my early twenties though, I decided to do it during Thanksgiving dinner. 

Call me sentimental, or maybe just mental, but I really, truly feel that the spirit and meaning of holidays, or maybe we should use the old term holy days, should be honored. I know I look like an angry old man shaking his fist at the sky, but I feel such a deep sadness that in the midst of an often chaotic, hateful, selfish world, people can't even be bothered to take one single day, or even one single hour to get in touch with something beautiful and healing, and to remember the real reason why we are supposed to observe these holy days.

I remember the first time at the Thanksgiving dinner table when I said, "Let's go around the table and say what we're thankful for." I was waiting for a good moment to say it, feeling nervous and scared. Finally when there was a slight pause in the conversation, I suggested it to everyone. I was absolutely heartbroken when several people laughed, some rolled their eyes, and some tried to turn it into some joke as if what I had said what stupid and naive. I didn't truly think anyone would honestly want to have a loving, emotionally intimate family moment, but I never expected that in that moment of vulnerability when I was trying my best to honor the spirit of thankfulness that I would end up feeling like the butt of a joke. I felt my face flush red with embarrassment, and something stirring in my throat that felt like tears considering whether they should make a sudden and unwanted appearance. There were a couple of family members though who offered up a kind word of thankfulness, and I suspected that they had sensed my embarrassment and were trying to rally behind me. It wasn't a bad dinner at all, and no one was trying to be hurtful, but sadly it remains one of my strongest Thanksgiving memories.

I didn't give up though. I continued to ask every year to the same response. Eventually I stopped taking it personally, and it was more of a symbolic gesture to my own ethos rather than a genuine expectation that my prompting might invite actual reflection or emotional intimacy and gratitude. This year I decided it was no longer something I would do. Without going into the whole backstory, I've just realized that I'm alone in some parts of my life journey, and that's ok. We're all at different stages, and we can't always share our experiences with others. You might make a delicious potato and onion pie, but if someone has just eaten a big meal, then you won't be able to share that with them. It's just not something they're hungry for. And I've finally come to terms with the fact that most people around me aren't hungry for the healing I've experienced. Most people around me aren't hungry for the emotional maturation that I've been building my new life on. Most people around me aren't hungry for deep spiritual change that requires you to evolve past your pain. And that's ok. They have their own meals, their own tables, their own plates and forks. And I have mine.

There is a bittersweet truth in that realization, because this year I have something especially wonderful to be thankful for. I'm carrying a beautiful, radiant secret inside of me. No one knows. And no one will ever think to ask me about it, because no one would ever suspect that I carry such a thing in my soul. It's filled with every color of light, and lifts me high into the sky, and cradles me deep into the earth. This year, it's the thing that I'm thankful for the most, and it's my most precious secret that I carry within me right now. It's my guiding light at the moment. And no one cares. And I don't know how to process that.

I am just thankful that I have something to be thankful for. And that's just the best I can do today.