America has lost sight of Thanksgiving’s meaning

By:

LeRoy Goldman

The Charlotte Observer

November 26, 2015

Two of the “regulars” who comment on my columns, a bank executive from Wisconsin and a cardiologist from North Carolina, sing the same refrain, “Well done, but too negative. Tell us how to end gridlock.”

Fair enough. But it’s hard, really hard. But maybe, just maybe, the answer hides in plain sight here on Thanksgiving Day.

America has lost sight of Thanksgiving’s meaning.

In many ways Thanksgiving is a uniquely American national holiday. It was first celebrated by the Pilgrims and Native Americans in 1621. They thanked God for the blessings of their harvest. They knew that their very existence depended upon it.

The first Thanksgiving Proclamation was signed by President Washington on October 3, 1789. It read in part, “I recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the people of these states to the service of that great and glorious Being...That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks.”

In 1863 President Lincoln’s proclamation made Thanksgiving a national holiday. The Proclamation called for a “national day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

For the Pilgrims and Presidents Washington and Lincoln, there’s no denying that giving thanks to God was the centerpiece of Thanksgiving.

But now Thanksgiving has been dumbed-down into a day of gluttony.

In very different ways we have dumbed-down politics and governance too. Americans have walled themselves off into two separate, warring nations, the Reds and the Blues, who loathe one another. Each of them believes they have a corner on truth. Each believes compromise is surrender. Each elects individuals who will perpetuate paralysis.

Perhaps there’s a way out. Take an hour and a half out of your otherwise barren Thanksgiving Day and watch the classic, Academy Award-winning 1947 film, Miracle on 34th Street.

Starring Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle, the cast also includes Maureen O’Hara and Natalie Wood, who plays a girl who like her mother, played by O’Hara, does not believe in Santa Claus. O’Hara, a Macy’s executive, is in charge of orchestrating the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and she recruits Kringle to be Macy’s Santa.

But she ends up with far more than she bargained for. Kringle not only believes he’s Santa Claus, but he also believes that he’s the one and only Santa Claus. If that’s not enough, he has the temerity to send Macy’s customers to its corporate rival, Gimbels, if Macy doesn’t have the toy a child wants.

Messrs. Macy and Gimbel loathe each other. Think of them as modern day Red and Blue generalissimos. They each share the same objective, the destruction of the other.

Kris Kringle throws a monkey wrench into all these destructive relationships. His unjust dessert includes being fired and being deemed dangerously mentally ill. He’s imprisoned, and put on trial.

But then it happens. Macy’s sales surge due to the publicity of Kringle’s advice to children. Gimbels is forced to follow suit. Messrs. Macy and Gimbel discover that they can prosper by cooperating with one another.

Kringle’s enterprising lawyer, played by John Payne, finds an ingenious way to prove in court that Kringle is the one and only Santa Claus. His legal tour de force not only delights New Yorkers of all ages, it melts the hearts of both female leads.

So, an old man with a bit of divine inspiration changes everything. Are you such an individual? What counts is what’s in your heart, not your wallet.

Goldman worked on Capitol Hill and at the National Institutes of Health. He has retired to Flat Rock.

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