NATIONAL BIRD DAY IS COMING

Here in the USA, soon enough it will be Thanksgiving. In truth, we always celebrate Thanksgiving. Yes, we know lots of people who say that as Jews we give thanks every day, but we also believe that it is appropriate for us to join in a national day of thanksgiving for this country of ours.

We have discovered over the years that even ex-pats living in Israel tend to remember Thanksgiving. In Israel,however, Thanksgiving dinner is often a piggy back to Shabbat dinner. Frankly, we feel that just makes it even more special.

We suspect that part of the pull that Thanksgiving has on people is precisely that it is an American secular holiday. If your family is frum (ie, religious), it is the one holiday when every one can ride/travel to be together.

Where we grew up in New England, Thanksgiving was a huge holiday. Back then, towns would sponsor holiday events that combined the religious (give thanks unto God) and the secular.

In our house, the turkey was served relatively early in the day. Along with the bird there would be sweet potatoes, baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, salad, green veggies, some other color veggies, cranberry sauce, cranberry relish, corn muffins, rye bread, and somehow or other chopped liver always made an appearance- just to be ecumenable.

By mid afternoon, the table had been pushed to the side wall of the dining room and the next round of food was put out. In general, round two was sliced turkey and sandwich fixin’s.

Dessert was an ongoing event: apple pie, pumpkin pie, pareve custard pie, chocolate cake, brownies, cookies, tea, coffee, brandy, a cigar or two and some sleepy people pretending to watch TV while they snored away in the living room in front of the set.

Depending on where you lived, if you got NYC television, you could savor all the monkey movies on TV: King Kong, Son of Kong, Bride of Kong, and our total favorite: Mighty Joe Young. In later years, many radio stations would pre-schedule a time so you could be sure to hear Arlo Guthrie’s magnum opus: Alice’s Restaurant.

In our house, everyone was expected to deliver a brief peroration on just what they were giving thanks for on this day. God help you if you were not up to par with your brothers and sisters. Actually, we would all get together before hand and co-write all of stuff. That sure saved a lot of criticism and panic. Some of the siblings would cry foul, however, because the two sets of twins would often issue one report by both of them,thereby cutting the agony of the recitation short!

So, why are we telling you this now? To be honest, we needed text for today’s column. Second, we are already in the pre turkey day mood. Please God, we will be in Israel, but our celebration will be no less passionate.