Thanksgiving 2009

Looking over last year’s posts, I see I managed to overlook Thanksgiving. Not this year. Though I made a brief mention of what I think there is to be thankful for – much! – here, I spared the details, didn’t I? Let me set things straight and tell you what I’m thankful for:

Family, first and foremost and always. We’re blessed with family both near and far that we love dearly and every single one of them have always let us know just how loved we are in return. You can’t ask for more than that. Everything else is just icing on the cake. We’ll have a few of them over today and we’ll enjoy their company but we’ll be thinking, too, of the family that’s not here.

We won’t have quite the same crowd that we usually do. Some of the older relatives have opted to dine out since they’re torn between showing up empty-handed and having to cook something. They don’t have to cook anything, of course, but you can’t convince them of that. They’re joining other relatives who have the same idea so good for them. Maybe they’ll drop by later. And we likely won’t have our nephew Jonah and his family. Being married now means he’s got other family obligations. That’s the way it goes as we grow older.

So, what’s on today’s menu? Turkey, of course. Sweet potato casserole. Corn casserole for Emily, broccoli rice casserole for Rachel. Mashed potatoes. Grandma’ll bring her dressing and gravy and noodles while Aunt Teri will bring her oriental salad. Hey, did someone remember to bring dessert? I hope so. As if there’ll be room for it afterwards.

A special day all around. I hope everyone’s is as special as ours.

Always Much To Be Thankful For

Peggy Noonan soars with her latest column about things to be grateful for. I especially liked her closing paragraphs (But read the whole thing.):

And after that, after gratitude for friends and family, and for those who protect us, after that something small. I love TV, and the other day it occurred to me again that we are in the middle of a second golden age of television. I feel gratitude to the largely unheralded network executives and producers who gave it to us. The first golden age can be summed up with one name: “Playhouse 90.” It was the 1950s and ’60s, when TV was busy being born. The second can be summed up with the words “The Sopranos,” “Mad Men,” “The Wire,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “ER,” “24,” “The West Wing,” “Law and Order,” “30 Rock.” These are classics. Some nonstars at a network made them possible. Good for them.

I leave it to others to dilate on why TV now is so good and movies so bad, since both come from the same town, Hollywood, in the same era. But there is a side benefit to televisions’s excellence, and that is the number of people who follow a show so closely, and love it so much, that after it’s aired they come together on long threads on Web sites and talk about what happened and what it means. People use their imaginations and unfocused creativity to add new layers of meaning and interpretation. “You know that was a reference to ‘Chinatown.’” “Did anyone notice what it meant when Peggy told Mr. Sterling ‘no’ when he asked for the coffee? A whole revolution captured in one word!”

Those threads are golden. We rightly discuss the fact that media now is fractured, niched and broken up, that we no longer watch the same shows or have the same conversation. But what’s happening now on the Internet after a good show is a conversation, a new one, and it’s sprung up from the technology that helped do in the old one. How ironic and predictable, and another cause, however small, for gratitude.

Trash television and the internet if you want but there’s always much to be thankful for. You just have to look for it. And likely not very far.