“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”
Sir Winston Churchill, (1874-1965)
I hope everybody has had all the good food one can handle. Here’s also hoping the leftovers are just as good in your house as they are in mine. My mom still cooks the majority of our holiday meals. Those leftovers are wonderful.
We always have leftovers because Mom cooks for two armies – the one we know is coming and the one that might. Lucky for her, she has two refrigerators and a deep freezer. But we don’t usually have that many leftovers, being from the South and all.
I say from the South because I don’t know how they do it in the rest of the country. But down here, everybody goes home with a plate – either for yourself or somebody you know that couldn’t make it. Many times it’s both.
The end of Thanksgiving traditionally marks the beginning of Christmas. A season of gratitude followed by a season of generosity – what a wonderful tandem. I hadn’t thought of it until recently, but what better symbol of this time of year than the giving of leftovers.
The Christmas season can be chocked full of anxiety – business, personal, physical, financial, emotional – everything seems to be happening faster with a great urgency and significance.
Today I want to encourage you to remember that generosity provides the best stress reliever if we remember its true characteristics. It expects nothing, it can cost nothing, it can be just a little something, it can be a huge thing, and it is always born in your heart.
Thanks for the reminder about generosity this morning, April. And I loved your segue from Thanksgiving to Christmas. In the past, I’ve always been a bit of Grinch (ok, more than a bit) about Christmas – I always saw the greed, the commercialism, the people stampeding over one another to get a good deal on a DVD player. This post of yours will make it easier to see it as a holiday of giving.
If my faith has taught me anything, it’s that when I’m paid it’s only because of His grace- it wasn’t my money to begin with. Keeping that in mind, giving up money is actually very easy, I promise! đ
PS: CRAZY- I’m considering joining the local Toastmasters… weird timing, April!
Lyman, I love it when people correctly spell the word “segue.” đ
I am glad I can pass on some Christmas spirit. I get kinda Grinchy too. Much of it feels like work to me and I have to be careful to remember that it is not supposed to be that way.
Lani – Ah the “coincidences” of BBFs đ
Your reminder on faith based generosity is a good one. I am glad you added it.
LOL, April… after I posted the comment, I looked at that and said to myself “Aww, man… did I spell that right???” Thanks for the confirmation! đ
Lyman – Glad to be able to put your mind at ease đ
I will share with you my knowledge of Thanksgiving in other parts of the country….
I spent one Thanksgiving in NYC, and it was great to be able to go see the iconic Macyâs parade, and be at the epicenter of that cultural definition of the day. The thanksgiving meal itself was cooked by a gifted southern cook, so it was amazing. The quality of ingredients available in the NYC markets for a foodie-minded cook is mind boggling. The organization to cook everything in a tiny NYC apartment requires a military level of precision and organizing, as well as asking some of the neighbors in the building who are out of town if they mind if you borrow their oven for a few hours on Thanksgiving. It was amazing to behold.
In Wisconsin the biggest difference is that itâs cold outside. The beer can just sit on the back porch and be perfect drinking temp, not having to be in a cooler of ice, and later guests donât have to run to the store on the way over because you need more ice for the coolers. (I was mystified by this my first Thanksgiving in Savannahââwhy do we need more ice?â). Same thing for the leftovers that wouldnât fit in the refrigeratorâ my mom was known to put pots of food outside on the patio table, with a sturdy lid held down by a brick or a rock or something, so an industrious squirrel or bird wouldnât go after the food. (We lived in a pretty suburban area, and raccoons really werenât around much until you got deeper into the country/woods.) Some people wanted leftovers. Some didnâtâdepended on how many peopleâs family celebrations you were expected to attend. Usually at least two different family branches lived within an hourâs drive, so you would do âlunchâ at one family gathering, and then drive over to another family gathering for âdinnerâ ( …with that amount of inevitable overeating, some people donât want to look at that food again until the following year.)
The next biggest difference is the frying of turkeys. I appreciate this on so many levels. Fried turkey is just betterâso moist. So the drama of cooking a turkey enough so itâs all done but the breast isnât dryâ not an issue anymore. Plus, it keeps the oven free for all the side dishes to take their turn in reasonable rotation. And now it is a way to watch my man remember being with his father. Even all the years he spent as a vegetarian, he would still go over to his parents house and help his dad fry the turkeys. Last year was his first year doing it by himself since his dad passed, and it was as sacred a remeberance as I have ever seen.
I think the reason people love Thanksgiving so much is it celebrates all the food and all the gathering with loved ones without any of the tasks of gift expectations, and whether you are gonna meet those expectations and make people happy or not. At Thanksgiving people are happy merely to visit and eat fabulous food together, and that is enough. I love giving gifts when theyâre inspired. Itâs more of a chore when itâs a matter of âI donât want to let someone down, but I probably will.â Thanksgiving is the best of our generosity as humans, that I can find, in our modern society.