Bradley Fitzgerald

Staff Writer

There are few holidays that give me the same feeling as Thanksgiving. Perhaps it’s because of the nostalgia, but I’ve always enjoyed sitting around the table, passing around plates with food and talking with family. I hope that doesn’t change as I get older, but it probably will. Seeing relatives that I rarely get to see all year long is something to always look forward to.

To some, it can seem like a laborious task that is done just out of respect for family. I know, I know, preparing food is not fun. Neither is traffic, nor the family members that make it hard to stay sane.

The origins of Thanksgiving are something that we all learn when we are younger. I know when I was younger, I made one of those feather headbands out of construction paper. We all remember the story of the Pilgrims arriving in the New World to escape religious persecution. They had trouble preparing for winter and farming, and the Wampanoag Native American Squanto taught them how to farm, so the two cultures celebrated by having a feast together. This is obviously a sweet, friendly story that is told to kids to help them understand why we celebrate the holiday. But obviously, like most things, there is more to the story.

The true things are that the pilgrims were ill-prepared, and in a land that they were unfamiliar with. They struggled in the beginning. The Native Americans did help them, and they ate together in 1621. But some scholars believe the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth on purpose, not wanting to go to Jamestown. The Pilgrims brought diseases that killed many of the Wampanoag people. The Puritans did kill other Native Americans, but that was years later in 1637. Relations soured as more settlers arrived in the New World, and eventually whole tribes were practically wiped out by either war, disease, or both.

This story reminds me of the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree, and how he ‘couldn’t tell a lie’. Yes, the man who was famous for his network of spies and ability to find out information by any means necessary did not condone lying.

In my opinion, wherever you look in history, you are probably going to find something nice is actually related to something that isn’t very pretty. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t celebrate a holiday. If that were the case, there would be barely any holidays that we celebrate. Plus, the more holidays the better. We get more days off.

It’s good to emphasize the positive things about history. The meeting of two vastly different cultures isn’t something that happens everyday. If they can manage to get together for a meal and stand each other’s differences, why can’t we? Plus, it is easy to judge people who were raised in times with different customs. We should, instead, focus on praising the people who decided to change them for the better. Plus, the more holidays the better. We get more days off.

So this Thanksgiving, especially in an election year, just try and remember we all have something to be thankful for. The spirit of Thanksgiving is a good one, with notions of family, love, and thankfulness. These are good things, and we should celebrate them regardless of history.