Everyday should be Thanksgiving

Jorden har oss detta gett

Solen det i ljus berett 

Kära sol och kära jord

Er vi tackar vid vårt bord.

Välsignad vare maten, skål!

...

Earth who gives to us this food

Sun who makes it ripe and good

Dearest Earth and dearest Sun

Thanks for all the work you've done.

Blessed be the meal!

...

Erde die uns dies gebracht

Sonne die es reif gemacht

Liebe Sonne, liebe Erde 

Euer nicht vergessen werde.

Thanksgiving is a beautiful holiday, or at least it has the potential to be. Sadly, in America it has become a day of consumerism and overconsumption. Walmart is asking in store-survey polls, "Is Thanksgiving Thanksgiving without a turkey?" Questions like that are disappointing to behold, (especially when there are so many vegetarians out there) because they take the beauty out of the holiday. Thanksgiving is followed by "Black Friday" where the stores around the country make it out of the red. I have never been Black Friday shopping, and hope never to do so. It's interesting to compare the American Thanksgiving with the harvest-festivals of other countries. 

Fall marks the harvest season for the Northern Hemisphere, and it is a wonderful time, probably my favorite season. The smell of spices swirl through the air, the largest, most succulent fruits ripen on their vines... Farmers and people who understand food can feel the outcome of their labor and the bounty of the land is overwhelming and amazing.

Having wwoofed and farmed here and there, and with my own attempts to garden in my minuscule plot, I can attest that it is a glorious feeling to harvest what you've sown and grown. You can be thankful for your own patience, attention and care for your plants, but also to the perfect conditions that nature provides. The sun, the rain, the night temperatures and evolution itself... every factor is important and each deserves  respectful thanks. 

In Waldorf schools there is always a blessing said before a meal. Generally it is nature-based, simple and beautiful. Ever since my sister and I started school, we've brought our meal-verses home to the dinner table. Our family has since adopted poems and songs from around the world and from different schools. We alternate them, sing in round, sometime just hold hands. At Rosenhill where I wwoofed, we did the same before our meals. Breathing together, first, so that we were all present at our meal. 

As far as food culture goes, I think that thanks should be given every day, before any meal. Why not? The farmer who toiled in the pumpkin fields for the "thanksgiving feast" pumpkin worked just as hard as the farmer who grew your spring asparagus. That's something that gets to me about Thanksgiving. It is a beautiful holiday, where families get together and cook, and where we all give thanks, but in a way that's almost an excuse for the other 364 days of the year to be disregarded. Everyday should be Thanksgiving.

In our family, Thanksgiving is always different. Sometimes we keep it to a minimal, sometimes we take it as an opportunity to be really creative and make complicated dishes. We stick to some traditions, like cranberry sauce, but turkey has only made its appearance on our table once. We try to keep it as local as possible and then perhaps leave a little room for the exceptions. 

This year my sister and I baked a pumpkin pie, using a sugar pumpkin. We've never done that before, which I find surprising. We usually bake an apple cake, and sometimes we avoid dessert altogether (because both of our birthdays fall around Thanksgiving, so we have plenty of cakes to worry about already.)

Tonight's dinner is mostly vegetable-based and covers the spectrum of colors (which I think is important for every plate!) On the Menu:

Roasted Butternut Squash

 with cinnamon, star anise and fennel spice blend

Sweet Potato Bites

lightly sweetened with Agave

Steamed Green Beans

Steamed Leeks

Roasted Spaghetti Squash

with melted, salted butter

Stuffing

with celery and onions

Mashed Potatoes

homemade

Brown Gravy

from 'Simply Organic'

Cranberry Sauce

homemade

...

Homemade Pumpkin Pie

from real sugar pumpkins

I'm thankful that we can indulge in so much amazing food, local, organic, sustainable. I'm thankful that despite the changing times, with GMOs and artificial food, with consumerism, corporate greed, mass-production, factory-farming and bureaucratic idiocies, there are still good people out there, who understand and appreciate nature and food and all that is good. Peace.