Thanksgiving 2025

Time flies; this was originally posted in 2021 when the world was different but our thanks was not. May you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving this year.

For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, for love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have so much to be thankful for it’s hard to know where to start. So I will start with you - the MOTI who gather here. We are like family whose members don’t always agree and some times even squabble but are nevertheless connected by a deep common bond. Unlike real families our bond isn’t blood but rather the shared values and principles that our country was founded on and we learned to cherish. We are bound together by our Constitution, the guide to building an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish.

I am thankful for the many other things I have to be grateful for: I’m grateful I was born on the cusp of the 50s, when America was great and nobody was ashamed of that.

A Sears-Roebuck Dutch colonial; ‘colonial’ - you could never list it that way today.

For having been born to a world where individual freedom, self-reliance and personal responsibility were core values of everyone who aspired to be a good citizen and that was nearly everyone.

Where the freedom call of the open road was a siren’s song

beckoning us to explore the land and our place in it.

I’m grateful that I was born when America was seen as a melting pot - and that was a good thing, not bad. A time before ‘cultural appropriation’ was a thing and, if used at all, applied only to the Brits raiding Egyptian tombs.

Taco Tuesday wasn’t a thing and tacos weren’t racist

I’m grateful for having received an actual education focused on knowledge, critical thinking and how to think rather than indoctrination consisting of what to think about such things as the climate crisis,  ‘critical race theory’ and other ‘social justice’ issues.

I’m grateful that I was raised in a time when many people, black and white, worked to correct true civil rights injustices. And when “peaceful protests”

meant marches and sit-ins rather than riots and and the creation of fake victims to be exploited for political gain.

I’m grateful for having been young at a time when it wasn’t necessary to feel guilty about everything that I ate, drank, drove, bought or dreamed about for fear of being selfish and killing the planet.

Just because it was cool

For these, and much, much more, I’m truly grateful. I will wrap up this Thanksgiving post with my annual MOTI Thanksgiving prayer from my mirror days:

In addition to all the other blessings

you have conferred on my reflective frame

I wish to thank you, Lord,

for the companionship of steadfast comrades

whose wit and wisdom and strength

help steer me through these tempestuous seas

of flattery and lies churned to fury by the ill will of demagogues.

Amen.

Above all, I’m thankful for still being here, among the living and grateful for all God has bestowed on us. Thankful for realizing that no matter what there is always something to be grateful for. A special thanks to all who visit here. I wish you a peaceful, happy Thanksgiving unmarred by strife.

Peace and prayers for all in need.

Get Your Turkey On

LisaW was bemoaning her Thanksgiving dilemma: She is happy with the traditional Thanksgiving menu, daughter wants macaroni and cheese. Daughter will bring mac and cheese but Lisa is having Thanksgiving away from home and has only a camp stove to warm up all the sides. Traffic jam in the food prep area! MathMom came through with a great solution: bake the side dish at home, wrap in a couple of bath towels and transport in an insulated cooler. Tailgater tactic.

The mac and cheese vs. non-mac and cheese Thanksgiving controversy reminded me of the history of Thanksgiving with Raj’s family, which I relayed to Lisa the other day:

My first Thanksgiving,1972, with Raj’s  family at his Mom and Dad’s house was nearly identical to my family’s menu except for the stuffing, everybody’s stuffing is a bit different.  But as the years went by and the kids grew up (Raj is the oldest of 9) everyone brought their favorite side dish that wasn’t part of the original menu: broccoli-rice casserole, funeral potatoes, spinach balls, sausage balls, 7 layer salad, corn casserole, noodles and crumbs, baked squash, brussel sprouts (yech!), Oreo pie, cheesecake, cupcakes and on and on. I’m not making this up. Not in place of anything but along with the traditional spread.

Once someone brought something it became a new tradition and they brought it every year. The buffet spread started in the kitchen and eventually  encroached on the dining room where the huge table turned into another buffet station and the 2 sideboards became a dessert display. The immediate family eventually numbered 34 counting spouses and grandkids. And then the grandkids started to get married and have their own families. Many of them still come to “grandpa’s house” – now Uncle Bill’s - for Thanksgiving and Christmas and now they’re bringing their own contribution.

But in all those years, with all those people and all that food, no one has ever brought mac and cheese. Odd.

It’s nice that everyone wants to contribute but honestly, somebody does have to orchestrate the menu and who brings what. Otherwise you end up with total anarchy and before you know it someone forgets to make the turkey and gravy.

“Where’s the meat?”

…and it’s replaced with enchiladas, lasagna and butter chicken. Or worse, a charcuterie board.

So let’s be careful out there with the Thanksgiving menu. Grab control and rein it in. The next generation depends on it.