Thankful for America
By Caroline Downey
Perhaps famous artist Norman Rockwell’s iconic Thanksgiving painting best captures the most quintessentially American holiday. In a year when families are encouraged to carve their turkey over a Zoom call, it’s almost comical to think of how far we’ve strayed from this wholesome tradition. Beyond a violation of individual freedom and personal choice, government calls to cancel our annual feast day are an affront to the American soul. Despite the Left’s insistence, warm reunions with loved ones cannot be replaced by virtual connections. While we are a pluralistic country of different faiths and customs, we find common ground in our traditions, founding principles, and American creed: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Between the punitive lockdown mandates, invasive gathering limitations, and the intensifying assaults on our American heritage, we need Thanksgiving now more than ever to strengthen our ties to family and friends and our battered national fabric.
My mother still remembers her mother rising at 5:00 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning to begin meal preparation for the late afternoon dinner. She recalls the aromatic smells of freshly baked pies wafting from the kitchen, the hustle and bustle to stuff the bird and get it in the oven, and the sweet anticipation of waiting for relatives to arrive. Before wokeism and political propaganda were injected into nearly everything, children enjoyed watching the televised Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. At the end of the day, the busy-ness all culminated in a celebration of our blessings as Americans, the bountiful potluck before us, and the people in our lives.
Like many others, my household is fortunate to experience that same festivity each year. But many have forgotten, or perhaps deny, the many reasons to be thankful for the United States of America. In this time of deep political division, the feeling of goodwill toward one’s neighbor historically shared on this occasion has been supplanted by suspicion and demonization of one’s political opponents. Militants on the Left relentlessly resurrect the stained episodes of our past while refusing to acknowledge the incredible progress and continued promise of our nation. More than two centuries after America’s original experiment in self-government, millions all over the world still dream of arriving on our shores. The gratitude many legal American immigrants express for the opportunities and freedom our great land provides at times seems lost on those lucky enough to be born here.
In the words of former President Ronald Reagan, “We can unite in gratitude for our individual freedoms and individual faiths. We can be united in gratitude for our nation’s peace and prosperity when so many in this world have neither.” This Thanksgiving, let us give thanks for the great blessing that America is our homeland and for the precious freedoms we enjoy by citizenship here. Today, let us profess and proclaim our valued traditions loudly and without fear.
Photo via Norman Rockwell
