Saints & Pilgrims

Now that fall has set in, I see on Facebook that a few people are contemplating putting up Christmas decorations in late October. The Christmas bug bites early in some households. For us, Thanksgiving ended up being the holiday we started celebrating early this year, by putting up our pilgrim, Native American and turkey decor five weeks before the special day. Why? For one, Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday, while Christmas is increasingly celebrated by most of the rest of the world. So, Thanksgiving tends to invite questions from secular neighbors and friends and it gives us a chance to speak of the religious significance of how our nation was founded. But it also helps us to focus on what still remains the spiritual heritage of the United States, while enabling us to totally look past the 31st of October as a day we want to commemorate in any manner.

In France, we have just begun a ten day school holiday called Toussaint, which historically in France, was a religious holiday honoring all the saints of the Roman Catholic church. Although the nation as a whole is presently ultra-secular, it still marks the more religiously significant day of November 1st as its holiday, instead of the occult-inspired date of All Hallowed's Eve, as in American culture. It is interesting that a handful of stores here in France have a very small section devoted to Halloween costumes and paraphenalia, the majority of which are witches, vampires and goblins. Yet it is still a relatively small marketing attempt to gain an inroad into the French economy that hasn't quite taken hold, except for those French who may have lived in the US for some period of time. And it remains an American anomaly, for the most part. No complaint here. Toussaint is still the day of the saints that figures most prominantly in the French calendar and I prefer it much more to what seems to be happening in the U.S, which is making Thanksgiving almost an afterthought, in between the more celebrated Halloween and Christmas. While the candy is still being rationed, we skip right on to tinsel and candy canes, only because the economy drives culture nowadays. And frankly, for a Wal-Mart nation, Thanksgiving just doesn't "sell".

I would much rather play Thanksgiving up big, since so many of my international friends are so impressed or intrigued by this holiday. They really are surprised, and the Muslims the most pleasantly, that in the States, a day has been officially set aside as a time for the nation to collectively give thanks to God for all He has done in our lives as families and as a nation. It's something that really sets the United States apart. So I say, let's celebrate this wonderful, God-focused and honoring holiday for as long and as big as we can. As I write, it's only October 22nd, but consider it Thanksgiving time in the Good household, even though the turkey won't start cooking until over a month from now. At Thanksgiving we are truly thankful and we are thankful for Thanksgiving. It means far much more to us here and now, a few thousand miles away from our homeland, than ever. Maybe next year we'll even start putting out the pilgrim figurines right after 4th of July.