On Giving and Thanks

The following is a reflection on two particular holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas:

Consider the following Google Ngram view, which illustrates the percentage the key words make of all words in a large corpus of published works:


According to this pretty compelling piece of data analytics, Thanksgiving has gotten less and less important in our culture, particularly relative to Christmas (or at least we've been writing about it less and less).

Consider also the following Google Trends chart, which shows relative search volumes of the two words in the US:

As seen above, our search volumes skew heavily toward Christmas, on average four times as much as Thanksgiving--even in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving.

In fact, in recent years Black Friday searches have overtaken Thanksgiving searches in November.

Is this significant?

I find the premise of Thanksgiving quite appealing--time to reflect on what we're thankful for, gathered around family and friends. I also find that experientially, retailers don't seem that interested in creating a Thanksgiving buzz. On November 1st I noticed Target had switched from Halloween themes to Christmas themes. Thanksgiving was skipped entirely in my consumer marketing experience (perhaps my own fault for shopping at Target?).

I think the magic and experience of Christmas is wonderful, too, for sure. The colors, smells, sounds, and general aura of the 'holiday season' is a great distraction from (or perhaps complement to) the cold winter weather. But I fear what we as an American culture have done to Christmas has destroyed the true meaning of the holiday and made Thanksgiving a victim as well. (Again, this post is not about all holidays and how Christmas has overshadowed them, just about Thanksgiving).

What Thanksgiving Does and Could Mean

The history of Thanksgiving is perhaps a little too saturated with cultural and civil religion. However, Lincoln's declaration that we set aside a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens" brings up an important point about giving thanks: it is to someone.

To give thanks to no one in particular is a pretty vacuous or even self-serving gesture, isn't it? If I say "I'm so thankful for my job" with no object of my thanks, I'm really just saying "I'm glad I'm really awesome and got this job" or "I'm really lucky that the timing worked out." Am I thanking myself, the unfolding of events, fate, luck, or some other vague deterministic or random force for my circumstances? Am I thanking the privilege I have, particularly as one who is white and well-educated? I don't feel particularly thankful that privilege comes at the expense of others (though in honesty it might be hard to notice from how much I've capitalized on my privilege).

In its conception, I don't believe Thanksgiving was meant for thanking such abstract things. Now I could say "I'm thankful to my managers for hiring me," which is more precise and steers my thanks more intentionally. But again, I'm also implicitly thankful they didn't hire someone else, who, for all I know, needed this job even more than I did. However, I do feel gratitude toward my employer for hiring me, as the arrangement has turned out mutually beneficial (or so I perceive).

So perhaps we miss something in Thanksgiving when we are thankful in the abstract; perhaps we should be thankful in particular, and make a habit of actually thanking those who have been good to us. I personally know I am too quick to jump to the abstract in lieu of the particular and have a lot of opportunity this season to express particular thanks (e.g., my manager, my dad, my wife, my community group leader).

But what of the commercial emphasis on Christmas at the expense of a retail cue to think about Thanksgiving and a seemingly missing emphasis on the giving thanks part of Thanksgiving? Is it sufficient that we see the inventory of stores rearrange to emphasize the foodstuffs that we associate with Thanksgiving?

What Christmas Could and Does Mean

In my observations, the American understanding of Christmas is epitomized by the pithy phrase 'to give is better than to receive.' I believe this is because giving often requires a purchase and to give is to stimulate economic activity, which we for some reason think should be perpetually upward. To extend the benefits and mitigate the limited seasonality of 'holiday shopping,' it appears retailers and marketers have gone with the approach to extend the shopping season back into early November.

To be fair, I think there is something wonderful and magical about Christmas in that soft, colorful lighting and enchanting music (not carols or jingles) add to the glory and charm of winter. I don't like associating Christmas with fall; to me it ruins the magic. Granted, winters seem more intense and perhaps arrive earlier as well, but I felt the best part of Christmas was how ephemeral it was. For a brief period we get to enjoy trees covered in lights and music that makes snow more enchanting.

However, I, not being particularly fond of commercialism in general, do not particularly enjoy the retail side of Christmas--what has become an obligatory exchange of things for practicing Christmasers. Christmas has a more complex history than Thanksgiving, but its evolution into a season of sales and economic activity at the end of Q4 does not seem at all in line with its spirit (though it does create a lot of pretty colors and packages).

I think the term 'holiday season' more adequately captures what Christmas has become, and given its history I don't find Christmas that particularly Christian a holiday to begin with. So I don't mind that conservatives feel like they're losing the war on Christmas, nor do I mind that Christmas is still metonymous for the magic of the winter holidays.

But should Christmas subsume Thanksgiving to bring winter cheer to late fall? I don't think so.

What I'm Thankful for

Christmas as the symbol of winter cheer and the season of perpetual hope is great--Christmas as the dogmatic celebration of the birth of Jesus is not so much something I'm into. Perhaps not the reason you might think--it's because I feel I should celebrate the birth of Jesus (nominally the purpose of Christmas) for Thanksgiving.

Ultimately, I agree with Lincoln that we should take time to give thanks to God. Not only is God particularly the object of my thanks, but Jesus is particularly the subject of it. The incarnation of Jesus, God's condescension to the baseness of humanity, gives us hope that we can be free of sin (i.e., that which is not of God, who is good, which therefore is not good) and promised a restoration and redemption of all things. Of course, it is not Jesus's birth as a baby that brings hope, but rather his 'birth' (i.e., new life) after his death that effectually conquered the power of sin and death to free us to a living hope.

The birth of Jesus as an event (i.e., a birthday) is a very small piece of a much grander narrative of reconciliation and redemption that is worth being thankful for, but not necessarily worth buying a lot of stuff for. I am thankful for the incarnation much more so than I am for the Nativity scene. Through it (and it's culmination in Christ's death and resurrection) there is power to be reconciled to God and made new--that is what I am most thankful for. If it is in fact better to give than to receive, God has given us literally everything, and that makes him the best.

In fact, I can, because of God, be thankful to God for any given thing. And I should be thankful for everything He's given me, even if it's not something I particularly enjoy. Thanksgiving has the possibility to be a time of deep reflection and a chance to reorient our hearts toward God in a way that fosters humility and leads to selfless giving--which is perhaps what Christmas is meant to be about, but lacks because we don't take the time to root our giving in thankfulness to the one who has given all--including the dignity and life of His Son--to us. And He has so abundantly much that we can give to others, not just things, but the same love He showed us when he forgave our sins and brought us back into His family. And what better time than Thanksgiving to add to our family and multiply what we have to be thankful for?


My meditation for this holiday is Psalm 118:

1 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;

    for his steadfast love endures forever!

2 Let Israel say,

    “His steadfast love endures forever.”

3 Let the house of Aaron say,

    “His steadfast love endures forever.”

4 Let those who fear the Lord say,

    “His steadfast love endures forever.”

5 Out of my distress I called on the Lord;

    the Lord answered me and set me free.

6 The Lord is on my side; I will not fear.

    What can man do to me?

7 The Lord is on my side as my helper;

    I shall look in triumph on those who hate me.

8 It is better to take refuge in the Lord

   than to trust in man.

9 It is better to take refuge in the Lord

    than to trust in princes.

10 All nations surrounded me;

    in the name of the Lord I cut them off!

11 They surrounded me, surrounded me on every side;

    in the name of the Lord I cut them off!

12 They surrounded me like bees;

    they went out like a fire among thorns;

in the name of the Lord I cut them off!

13 I was pushed hard, so that I was falling,

    but the Lord helped me.

14 The Lord is my strength and my song;

    he has become my salvation.

15 Glad songs of salvation

    are in the tents of the righteous:

    “The right hand of the Lord does valiantly,

16 the right hand of the Lord exalts,

    the right hand of the Lord does valiantly!”

17 I shall not die, but I shall live,

    and recount the deeds of the Lord.

18 The Lord has disciplined me severely,

    but he has not given me over to death.

19 Open to me the gates of righteousness,

    that I may enter through them

    and give thanks to the Lord.

20 This is the gate of the Lord;

    the righteous shall enter through it.

21 I thank you that you have answered me

    and have become my salvation.

22 The stone that the builders rejected

    has become the cornerstone.

23This is the Lord’s doing;

    it is marvelous in our eyes.

24This is the day that the Lord has made;

    let us rejoice and be glad in it.

25Save us, we pray, O Lord!

    O Lord, we pray, give us success!

26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of theLord!

    We bless you from the house of the Lord.

27The Lord is God,

    and he has made his light to shine upon us.

    Bind the festal sacrifice with cords,

    up to the horns of the altar!

28 You are my God, and I will give thanks to you;

    you are my God; I will extol you.

29 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;

    for his steadfast love endures forever!