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Thanksgiving is to pause and reflect . . .

Gratitude

Thanksgiving is always the second Monday in October for Canadians, about six weeks before our American neighbours celebrate the same holiday.  It is an important and very unique holiday for a number of reasons.  For one, it’s secular in origin, not religious like Christmas and Easter, and rather than celebrating an ‘event’, it celebrates gratitude, something society as a whole seems to have a hard time practicing in general.  Although it isn’t religious in origin, its roots lie with the very Christian American pilgrims who gave thanks to God for bounty at the end of a successful harvest in 1621. 

For 400 years North Americans have traditionally paused to give thanks at the conclusion of harvest.   Even though most of us no longer feel we’re connected to harvest, make no mistake, it is still a successful harvest that ensures a comfortable winter – for all of us.  Never in my life has that been more evident than in the year of 2020.  For the first time in memory, the planting of spring was in jeopardy across the nation due to supply chain issues and minimized seasonal foreign workers (upon which many market gardens, grain farmers and ranchers depend), and during the first few months, issues with social distancing caused many meat plants to shut down creating a problem for meat producers who depended on them to get their meat to market.  Over the months, we came to accept, and even expect in-store shortages and not being able to get what we order as soon as we were used to getting it.  True definition of a first world problem at the best of times, but a little more tangible recently. 

Bountiful harvests in 2020 and 2021 were questionable right from the onset of spring planting, and many people were worried.   Me included. It looked like we were in for desperate food shortages, and very high prices. But from the perspective of hindsight, we can say that the inconveniences of ‘out-of-stock’ items has been only that, an inconvenience.  Some prices rose, but the situation warranted that. Though frustrating at times, these inconveniences were only ever ‘lumps-in-our-oatmeal‘.  At least for the time being.  Other things were a little more impactful: special events that had to be altered, postponed or even cancelled, ill loved ones we couldn’t visit, funerals that sadly got missed, family gatherings that didn’t happen, loneliness – especially for the elderly or immune compromised, jobs that were affected, income reduced, businesses that suffered and some that couldn’t survive, dental care and other health related appointments that were set aside, as well as the loss of other services we enjoyed and upon which many jobs were dependent. Our economy was driven to its knees and we worried about the reliable availability of food and other necessities. 

Now, in the autumn of 2021, we’ve learned many things. We’ve learned to continue on, keeping a bigger distance between each other, washing our hands more often, masks have become part of our outer clothing, and technology has become our connection with the world outside our front door.   We’re still seeing results of the global upset, and it is affecting our food supply, promising to be more than an inconvenience in the near future.

But we have SO much to be grateful for, and it is more important than ever to not only acknowledge these blessings, but to focus on them.  Yes, in some ways its been tough, but there are many good things that came out of our unwilling courtship with covid.  I am so grateful that THANKSGIVING gives me pause to reflect and appreciate the specifics of my bigger picture. 

If I were to get into details, the things I am grateful for, are innumerable.   Though I try to consciously “count my many blessings, and name them one by one“, to do so takes a long time. Those are better left for personal reflection and my journal, for me to review from time to time with my Heavenly Father. But more generally, I can summarize many of them in these broader points.

1. Jesus Christ
The gospel of Jesus Christ blesses my life in every way.  Through it, I understand where I came from, where I am going, and what I am doing here.  It provides a clearer vision of what I want, it helps me appreciate the many roles I play and helps me define my core values.  I am grateful for His atoning sacrifice that paid the price for my sins, and swallows up my sorrows.  I am grateful for the example He set, the unconditional love and the gate through which He walked which points the way to my Heavenly Father.   I am thankful for His gospel which continues to be a beacon in my life, helping me to let go of the past, overcome weaknesses and to focus on becoming the person I want to be.  I am grateful for scriptures that teach of Him, and for prayer that is the means of communication He makes available to me.

2. My family
Those who produced me, and those I had a hand in producing and in whose lives I had influence – I hope I did enough.  For siblings and cousins with whom I walked in my formative years, and who are still in my life.  For nieces and nephews who choose to continue to stay in my life.   For those of my family who have gone on before me – I appreciate so much, the choices you’ve made to bring me to this place and time.   I will do what I can for you.  And for those who have yet to be born – I feel some accountability to leave you a better world, and a faithful family in which to grow.  

3. Dan
The man I share this life with, and with whom I share all these children and now grandchildren.   For the growing experiences we’ve had together both good and bad – they’ve made us who we are. I am grateful for love in my life.  And as time goes on, I am increasingly grateful for the future we still have before us. I am grateful with confidence that we will grow old together – sealed for this life and the next.

4. The church I belong to
which provides doctrine to help me understand my relationship with God, and my responsibility to my fellow human beings.  It provides community to me, of like minded people who I love and respect; a community of people I can rely on, people I can reach out to, and people I can help, serve with and learn from. It has been the village that helped raise my children. It is the vehicle through which I make sacred covenants with my Heavenly Father, which sustain me, bringing me comfort and confidence as I walk that covenant path. It provides me with meaningful service opportunities which allow me to put myself and my perspective aside from time to time, to focus on a bigger, all inclusive picture.

5. Good health
and strength to accomplish the things that are most important to me.   As an extension of this, I am grateful for a good medical system that serves my community.  Doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacies, and all those who work in the medical field, that I most often take for granted. 

6. Good nutrition
which is the building block of good health.   For many of our early years, we lived from month to month, not being able to afford a lot of extras, and many times not even buying much in the way of groceries in any given month, but through it all because of gardens, food storage, tithing and careful management, there has always been healthy food on our table. That blessing was always appreciated.

7. Friends. 
We’ve been blessed with dear friends over our lifetime.   We don’t get together in the same way of course, we don’t sit for hours and chat face to face like we used to, we don’t go to movies or out to lunch as we have in the past, but we do what we can in these covid times.   We’re still in each other’s lives and we’ve found ways to be creative. The important thing is that when we do get together its as if there’s never been an absence. How I appreciate the love of good friends.   

8. Tradition. 
Traditions are a critical part of our culture. In many ways they are the building blocks of what brings us together, and holds us together. They connect us to our history and provide clues about why we are the way we are.  They separate us from others in a good way, providing unique similarities that bind cultural identities, and family units.   They provide context for those who came before us, acknowledging the contribution they’ve made to the quality of our lives and the way we understand our world.   They are an important thread in the tapestry of what makes us unique – providing a sense of comfort and belonging.  Traditions don’t have to be old, handed down from generations before.   We can develop new meaningful traditions that have the power to bless our lives in the future, and to create a legacy that will enhance the quality of life of those who come after us.   Truth is, we are all creating a legacy of one sort or another – consciously or not.  How much better it could be if we focused on what that legacy will look like to those we’re leaving it to.  

Not all traditions are good.  Part of our responsibility to our family is not only to pass on healthy traditions, the ones that connect and edify, that strengthen and uplift – but to break the cycle of unhealthy traditions, the ones that foster hate and prejudice, division, unhappiness and abuse.  

9.  Technology
Never thought I’d ever say it, but I am grateful for technology.  Even to the degree that I understand it, and the terrifying learning curve that is repeatedly before me, I must concede that it has enhanced my life. It has kept me connected with the people I love and care for, the information I need, the community I want, and a multitude of opportunities to serve those around me.  Mobile phones, tablets, desk top computers, televisions, the internet that makes them all friends, and yes even social media avenues that help me reach beyond my own immediate circle.  Without technology this year, it would have been a lot lonelier than it was.

10. Our Garden

For many years while I managed our family business, an LDS Bookstore – I didn’t have time to fully enjoy my garden.  It was a chore that somehow compelled me from spring to fall.  I put in the work, and while I can admit I often found solace losing myself for hours in the distraction of it, I confess that I hardly ever harvested it in those busy years.  Some years I was tempted to let it go, reasoning that because the store kept me so busy every fall, the final satisfaction of harvest alluded me.  But one day I realized that it wasn’t the harvest that soothed me during the calm peaceful summer hours that I quietly weeded with only the birds and squirrels.   It wasn’t the harvest that distracted me from business worries and stress in the spring while I planted flowers and potatoes.   It wasn’t the harvest that took me on pleasant greenhouse excursions looking for evening scented stock and some new herb that I hadn’t yet grown.  I realized that my garden was therapy, and though one day I hoped it would become a-year-long therapy, I would be making a terrible mistake if I stopped the process simply because one portion of it wasn’t working for me.
From this vantage point, I am very glad for that decision long ago.  My garden has paid me back many times over for the hours I devoted to it these many years. It has been good for me.    

I am grateful for continual clean water, electricity, furnaces and fireplaces, hardwood floors, meaningful employment, vacuum cleaners, brooms, chickens, cherries, kale, dill and sunny days.  I am grateful for Vitamin D and aloe vera plants, books, movies and this blog that gives me an outlet of expression.   I am grateful for the constant drive to improve and learn new things.  I am grateful for Santa and teddy bears and quilts and clotheslines. 

Being grateful makes us happier.   It really does.  Because it helps us develop a more positive outlook, it promotes optimism, lowers stress, depression and anxiety.   There is growing scientific evidence that demonstrates expressing genuine gratitude improves our physical health as well as emotional.   It improves our quality of sleep and even enhances our immune system.  

Thanksgiving is a gift.   It is the opportunity we often neglect to take without a reminder, that is to pause, take a few minutes, reflect on what we’re really grateful for.  I hope you take this time to do exactly that. I’d love to see your list.   No doubt you’ll remind me of many more things I too am grateful for.  

Warmly,

Cindy Suelzle

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Thanksgiving – food and memories

I don’t know when I started loving fall and Thanksgiving. The colours, the smells, the foods, the geese flying south, the warmth of the sun on still autumn days, the crunch of leaves while walking in the river valley, sitting around the fire on crisp evenings, . . . . . Not sure if I always have loved it, or if it started with autumn memories that included Dan. We started dating in Edmonton during the late summer, and I moved away within weeks to Cold Lake.  I was a teenager just starting high school. He came up to see me a time or two and we wrote for a while, but long distance romances when you’re that young are difficult at best.

Two years later I was passing through Edmonton again in the late summer and we reconnected for a short while. A couple of dates and I was back in Cold Lake in September to begin my final year of high school. I had grown up a little, he had grown up a little more.  The following weekend, he drove to Cold Lake to visit me and I prepared us a picnic lunch.  There are plenty of beautiful places to go for picnics around Cold Lake, and we had a lovely time.  This became the beginning of many weekend pilgrimages from Edmonton to Cold Lake, throughout the fall and winter.  It wasn’t long before we became engaged.  He got an insider look at my family in all our glory: good, bad, and yes, even the occasional ugly.  He came to church with me on Sundays and met many of my friends.   Conversations lasting many hours helped us get to know each other, and eventually winter turned to spring.  He wanted to get married in the spring, but for me, it had to be fall.   I needed a little bit of time between high school and the commitment of marriage. And fall had become a significant time in our story anyway.  We were married the following October.  Thanksgiving weekend.  My apologies to everyone who had to give up their Thanksgiving weekend that year to travel to our wedding. That meant you didn’t get your usual traditional Thanksgiving Dinner – which I never considered at the time.   Sorry ’bout that.

Thanksgiving includes DINNER to me – one that involves planning and preparation.   In the beginning, we were always at one of our parents’ homes on the Thanksgiving weekend. There were some constants between our homes of course: roast turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes with gravy,  cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. And there were some variables: brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes, broccoli salad, perogies, cabbage rolls, variations on pies and pumpkin, and my Gramma Harrison’s marshmallow fruit salad – depending on where we were.  But it was always with family. That was the critical component.

Thanksgiving however, is more than dinner. It’s memories. It’s harvesting the garden. It’s late summer tomatoes. It’s apples, and apple juice, purple grapes and high bush cranberries. It’s the humidity of the canner, the hum of the dehydrator. It’s crisp outside, warm inside. It’s family. It’s the time of year (not just the day, but all the weeks leading up to it) that the bounty of the season causes one to pause and reflect on those things we’re most grateful for. And more than that, its a good time to vocally express our appreciation to others and to Heavenly Father.

Over Dan and my years together, Thanksgiving evolved from us going to our parents homes, to us hosting our parents and others.  That was when the metal of tradition was put to the test.  Which of our family’s established traditions would we incorporate into our lives? and which new traditions would we create with and for our children?  For those traditionalists like me, we like certain things done the same way, every time.  We like revisiting celebrations the same way.  For me, Thanksgiving must include turkey with all that means to me. Christmas Eve much include bread and cheese.  Easter must include coloured eggs.   All the above must include PEOPLE. But in these difficult Covid times that are messing with our usual way of doing things we can still find ways to celebrate and enjoy important ‘traditions’.   In fact there has probably never been a time when we were in more need of the cohesiveness of traditions.

apples, apple juice, apple sauce, apple leather, apple crisp, and of course . . . apple pie

I am a gardener, so harvest has particular meaning to me, and a definite connection to our Thanksgiving menu.  In addition to the must-have turkey with fixings, dinner must include things I’ve harvested.  Things like Cranberry juice from our own high bush cranberry. Made into a sparkling drink.  Homemade Cranberry sauce – made from fresh or frozen cranberries, or even better – freeze dried cranberries. Dressing made with homemade bread, onions, garlic and other herbs from the garden. Vegetables of course, from this year’s harvest. Apples: apple pie, apple juice, apple sauce, apples in salad. Pumpkin: maybe pie, maybe tarts, maybe cheese cake, maybe cookies, maybe dip for gingersnap cookies. Grape: pie from our own grapes.  Bread – homemade rolls. And of course, FAMILY – the greatest harvest of all.  This year, by stupid covid necessity our numbers will be fewer.  One son’s family will be with their other grandparents.   One son’s family will be with another son’s family.  My mother will be with my niece.   Our daughter’s and another son’s families will be with us.  Friends – another great harvest, will be not be around our table this year.  But we will gather as we can, and enjoy the food and companionship of each other.  

Don’t ever discount the importance of food in celebrations, traditions and memories.  Most of us have very strong food-memories, for good or bad. That is why food is so important in how we celebrate special days, and in how we associate with certain people. A strong (and good) food memory for me is “chicken noodles”; many years of family gatherings and happy times are associated with this family favourite. And it is the natural suffix of Thanksgiving turkey. Ukrainian Cabbage Rolls are another strong food-memory for me. No one could make cabbage rolls like Dan’s step-mom Margaret, and no family dinner that she put on would be complete without them. Its been a loss for many years. University of Massachusetts Professor of Psychology Susan Krauss Whitbourne teaches us that “Food memories involve very basic, nonverbal areas of the brain and can bypass your conscious awareness.   This is why you can have strong emotional reactions when you eat a food that arouses deep unconscious memories. . . . The memory goes beyond the food itself to the associations you have to that long ago memory.”   For many of us, those food memories are already well established, but our children’s food-memories are still forming, and we have a tremendous influence on their creation and evolution.   Wouldn’t it be nice if most of those associations were good ones?

Happy Thanksgiving dear ones.


Warmly,
Cindy Suelzle