INTRODUCTION:

Thanksgiving celebrations have been recorded as early as 1607 in various colonies in the United States but the “First Thanksgiving” happened in 1621 at Plymouth Plantation. What started as an impromptu religious service became a civil tradition in the U.S. today. Some history buffs will claim that Thanksgiving is just merely another form of the fall harvest festival celebrated by most cultures around the world for as long as history has been recorded. While true, I want to examine the background and the traditions of thanksgiving in its current form in America and what it can teach us about writing.

 HISTORY:

Like I mentioned previously, the first Thanksgiving took place at Plymouth Plantation in 1621. The settlers threw a celebration for a successful harvest after a particularly difficult winter. The Pilgrims (as they are known to be called) settled in a relatively empty area of Plymouth. In the interest of fairness, it should be noted that it was empty because the plague had killed off most of the Native American tribe, the Patuxet Indians. However, such a controversial topic is outside the scope of this post and I think it’s important to focus on what came after.

The Plymouth Plantation didn’t fare very well in its first iteration. It, like many of the settlements that had come before it, had struggled to survive in the New World. In 1620, the Pilgrims had been hit by a particularly harsh winter in its first year that killed more than half of their population.  Their colony would likely have been completely eliminated if it weren’t for the assistance of Squanto, Samoset, and the Wampanoag Tribe. Samoset had been the first Native American to meet the settlers in Plymouth. He surprised them by walking up in the spring of 1621 and speaking to them in English. After learning of their struggles, he asked Squanto, the last living member of the Patuxet Indians, to help the settlers.

Squanto taught the pilgrims how to grow their corn, where to fish, where to procure commodities that the settlers could use and where to go to trade their goods for profit. There’s actually a full history about Squanto beyond the Thanksgiving narrative that I encourage anyone to read. Squanto was an esteemed advisor and adept diplomat between the Europeans and the Native Americans. He helped the settlers in this capacity until he died from the plague the following year.

                The first Thanksgiving was a three-day feast attended by 90 Native Americans and 53 Protestant Pilgrims as thanks for a successful harvest.

MODERN THANKSGIVING:

I’m spending Thanksgiving with my parents this year. It’s the first time in probably three or four years that I have had the opportunity to celebrate it with them. I had been stationed in Okinawa, Japan for most of my time in the military and it had been difficult to spend the holidays with my family. You would think that my family was planning their own three-day feast. My parents cooked and cleaned two and three days prior to the celebration. The house became a whirlwind of festive decorations and artfully folded napkins. It was fulfilling to see my wife and my family working together to prepare for the event. If you’re asking yourself what I was doing during this time, I’ve been feverishly writing book 3, and I’ve probably been a poor guest as a result.

However, I think when someone is writing, they start to look around them and try and see what events they could incorporate into their own writing. In the process of these festive preparations, I realized that there was something to be learned from Thanksgiving. The history is interesting to be sure, but I think the modern version of Thanksgiving is more compelling. It is no longer about being thankful for a harvest. After all, the local grocery store carries everything we need. It has become a celebration of family and of working together to make the holiday happen in the first place. Preparing for Thanksgiving is hard, difficult work. Why do people spend days preparing and making sure their house is clean for the few hours of enjoyment that the labor produces? I think it’s because it’s the labor that makes everything worthwhile. If someone offered to buy everything for Thanksgiving pre-made from the store, most people would scoff at the idea.

“You mean you don’t want to try grandmas’ famous recipe for stuffing?”

This is the time where each family dusts off the time worn recipe cards, penned in with cursive lettering that tells them exactly how to make pumpkin pie, or exactly how to make sure the stuffing is moist. Each family is proud of these traditions. They’re proud of the work they put in and the effort it took to prepare for Thanksgiving. Thinking to give that away in favor of store-prepared food seems almost an insult to the very idea of Thanksgiving. That’s because the act of preparing is truly more about the journey than the destination. It’s about family taking a pause out of their busy lives to prepare the oldest of comradery-building things: food. Eating communally and catching up with each other about our busy lives is one of the oldest forms of love and bonding. It’s the real reason we celebrate Thanksgiving today. It isn’t to honor the Native Americans or to remember the settlers at Plymouth Plantation. No, it’s to work together and enjoy the fruits of our labor.

WRITING:

In every one of my books, I say thank you to the team that helped me put the book together. I always say that no book is written alone and its true. There are editors, beta readers, and fans that help make the book become the way it is. Sometimes I don’t feel like I’m actually writing, I’m more just channeling something larger than myself onto the page. At the end of the day, it’s my name that goes on the cover, but I take great pleasure in mentioning the people in the acknowledgements because we went through the difficulties together. It was never a solo project, it was a group event. When I look at the preparations for Thanksgiving and the feeling of working together to create something larger than ourselves, I can see the parallels to my own writing.

For you writers who are worried about your word count today or worried about your deadlines, its especially important that you take this time to refresh and re-center with your families. I’m feeling the strain myself, but I recognize that this Thanksgiving will refresh my soul and make my writing even better when I return to it. For now, I want to give thanks to all of the people in my life who have nurtured and nourished me. It truly takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to make a man. It takes a village to write a book.

Happy Thanksgiving

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