Thanksgiving: Memories and Hope

When I was a child, Thanksgiving was indeed a day to be thankful. There was a local high school football game, Barringer vs. East Orange, at the time considered by the locals to be the oldest high school football rivalry in the nation. I also got two days off from school. That short week was a Godsend to a boy who would rather be outside playing then stuck in a classroom. The turkey and pumpkin pie were fabulous and then there was the parade, the best part of which was the last float. That float carried Santa Claus. Seeing Santa on Thanksgiving marked the unofficial opening of the Christmas season. Yes, Christmas and a Roy Rodgers two-gun set of six shooters were right around the corner.  

            It never occurred to me back then to be actually thankful for life’s blessings. I’m a baby boomer isn’t it all about me?

I was born in post war America when times were so good that even the poor had a better life to look forward to than most of the undeveloped world. Things were so good that it was possible to take what we had for granted; freedom, security, trust in our leaders.          

            And even though my parents lived paycheck to paycheck back then, I never had to worry about having a roof over my head. I never wanted for a hot meal, decent clothing or heat when the weather turned cold. As a child of course, it never crossed my mind that not even 20 years ago, men died horrific deaths on European battlefields and Pacific islands to preserve our freedoms. Men and women sacrificed years of their lives in their prime to fight a war we didn’t start but certainly finished.

As a child I never connected the dots: The turkey and pumpkin pie that sat so reliably on our kitchen table year after year were possible only because my father stood day after day, year after year, at a printing press. My mother skillfully and lovingly prepared the meal, following traditions which in turn, she passed onto us. And I add, without irony, that I was blessed to have the same mother and father at the table every year.  

None of this is to suggest that life was better back then. Certainly the traditions of Thanksgiving live on in our memories. Possibly made better than they actually were by our uniquely human ability to edit the moments that don’t fit with the Norman Rockwell images we prefer.     

The beauty of the day is that regardless of our circumstances, we have the chance to start new traditions, create future memories and above all give thanks for our countless blessings. Another thing I’m sure I never gave much thought to as a child was who we were actually thanking on Thanksgiving. There’s a lot to choose from, including parents, spouses, significant others, employers, farmers and of course, the NFL. But nothing would be possible without God. A simple prayer to the Good Lord, thanking Him for whatever we have is the entire point of the celebration. I realize some may disagree and have no wish to argue the point. What I do know is that every Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamation, beginning with George Washington’s, makes clear reference to this very fact, pointedly thanking God.

We live in a world dramatically different than the one I grew up in. When you’ve lived long enough to know that American life today barely resembles the righteous America you grew up in, it’s natural to worry. But my Thanksgiving Day prayer will be thankful and it will be hopeful. Hopeful that our nation, reeling from decades of rapid change, will rebound and be once again a place where children can afford to take freedom, security and trust for granted.          

 

Copyright 2012, Len Serafino. All rights reserved.

 

Going to See Santa

Most of us had the experience of going to see Santa when we were kids. It’s a long standing tradition that is as much a part of the Holiday as hanging your stocking on Christmas Eve. I was in the local mall the other night where Santa often resides these days. Standing on the mall’s second level, I had a birds eye view of the Santa Claus spectacle. There was a long line of anxious parents and small children, many of them too young to be anxious themselves, other than the fear some may have had of this big guy with a beard in a red suit. I must say this mall’s Santa Claus looked very much like the real thing, right out of a Coke ad you might say.
A little girl, perhaps three years old, dressed in a Christmassy red and green dress, was giving her mother a very hard time about sitting with Santa so she could have her picture taken. The little girl was adorable but she was definitely not in an adoring mood. She wanted no part of the guy who is supposed to come across with all the goodies on the morning of December 25th. The child’s mother was imploring her to sit with Santa. The woman seemed, well, desperate to capture the moment on film…or I suppose should say, digitally. She sat her daughter down on Santa’s lap, then next to him and finally in front of him to no avail. As soon as the mother stepped away so the picture could be taken, the child got up and ran to her.
The elves got into the act, doing their best to bribe the kid with stuffed reindeer and then candy. No dice. Then the mother decided to let her little girl watch other children make nice with Santa. Three kids did just that but the star of my little show still demurred. I have to say I was impressed with the behavior of the other parents standing patiently on line with their restless kids. No one seemed the least bit perturbed by this child’s refusal to sit with St. Nick and no one gave the mother the evil eye for her persistence. In the end, they got the photo but Mom is in the picture too. Perhaps one day it will make for a funny story the little girl can tell her fiancé. That’s if she can find the photo 25 years from now.
My take is simple. A picture with Santa is not worth the hassle I witnessed the other night. I say this because I have never been in an adult’s home that featured a picture of the resident sitting on Santa’s lap. Now I’ll bet you have several precious photos that you’ve had retouched, blown-up and framed because they have special meaning for you. I’ll also wager that you don’t have one of you with some big, fat, oddly dressed stranger in red. Think back to your own picture with Santa. Remember the look on your face? Is that fear in your tear stained eyes or was it a side effect of the million watt flash bulb that just went off in your face?
What happens to these pictures anyway? You take them home and show them to grandparents who ooh and ahh over them, secretly wondering whether you can even trust the people who play Santa anymore. You display them on a countertop or bookshelf during the Holidays and then…you put them in a box with other photos. Listen, a few nights before my sojourn to the mall, I was wading through a huge box of old photos. Guess what I found? Right, I found several pictures of my son and daughter having the all important powwow with Mr. C. I even found one of me.
Considering how busy parents with young children are during the Holidays, I can’t imagine what possesses them to stand on a long line surrounded by crying kids. Some parents do find ways to avoid it. Recently a friend told me that he and his wife decided not to tell their children stories about Santa Claus. They felt it would be lying to them and they wanted to build trust right from the beginning. If you ask me they probably just didn’t want to wait around for the photos. The funny thing is their kids, all adults now, complain that their parents robbed them of the Santa experience. Go figure. I wonder if they were in line the other night with their little ones.

Copyright 2010 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.