Sometimes the mistakes make for the best and most vivid memories

Columns

November 25, 2005

David Crowley The Greensburg Daily News Fri Nov 25, 2005, 01:46 AM EST

I wanted to watch a bit of Monday Night Football before going to bed this week.

Being male, I won’t watch the commercials, so I switch around the stations. I caught a bit of a CBS comedy that illustrated the series of disasters of a family Thanksgiving.

I caught a section where the mother made the perfect turkey, but clueless daughter moved the serving table in front of the swinging kitchen door, and clueless son smashed into the door, so the table was sent careening toward the window, where the turkey flew out.

If I were directing, I would have cut to a shot of the turkey zooming out the window toward some hapless person on their way home.

No matter what disaster hit, this family was determined to be together for a Thanksgiving dinner.

Sometimes the mistakes make for the most vivid and best memories.

I am grateful for our attempts to maintain traditions. We always had cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving, and I continue that habit. Neither of our daughters like it, so I substituted canned instead of homemade.

"You can’t do that Dad, we always have homemade cranberry sauce, and the color is better on the plate, even if we won’t eat it."

Some traditions define the look of a holiday for us.

Thanksgiving may be a national, secular holiday, but it is, perhaps, the only one where family after family takes the time to pray in a special way before eating.

It may be one that has taken some thought and time; it may be a perfectly phrased bit of Scripture; it may be that each person around the table mentions some element of gratitude in life.

To frame a holiday around thanksgiving is a marvel. It is a great move into Christmas, this move from selfishness into gratitude, from striving to a generous spirit.

As people may be reading this piece, they have already returned home from the big day after Thanksgiving shopping sales. Maybe the children get to go to the movies.

For a lot of people, that is part of the holiday, to plan what stores to hit and for what things to be on the lookout. It is the first move for a lot of us into Christmas presents that jump-starts Advent this year.

Traditions help hold us together. Traditions help us know what to do and what to expect in an age when anything goes is often the rule. This is one of the times when families are drawn together with a magnetic pull. Due to shifting circumstances, the traditions may not be on thanksgiving. I admire the folks who want to be together, but out of a desire to maintain harmony are flexible enough to plan their holiday around the rough date of Thanksgiving.

That willingness to extend the holiday may well be the best new tradition for Thanksgiving. Extending the holiday can train us into the attitude for the holiday in the rest of the year.

That very flexibility and willingness to adapt to circumstances is a good model for our relationships in general. That willingness to work out our schedules to arrange time together can be a model for time-pressured people. Of course, the willingness to extend the holiday can keep us alert to reasons for celebrating thanksgiving more often. Bit by bit, it can train our minds and souls into taking a break from ceaseless push for more and to bask in what we have.

It can settle our restless spirits and to learn to accept what is good enough, so that the best need not be enemy, but aspiration.

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