I recall last year trying to write an entry about giving thanks. I thought I’d posted it, and I find I had the same issue then as I have now – I can’t seem to quite find what I want to say.

Like the silly cultural tradition of the new year’s resolution, we in america, at least (does anyone outside the US practice something like this? I don’t know) take one day of the year to ‘give thanks’.

This, like christmas, is ostensibly a religious celebration. The act of giving thanks is in fact, thanking your chosen deity for whatever you have.

It’s the funny dichotomy of american culture; we were founded in many ways by religious pariahs, zealots who fled home country rarther than assimilate into a less-devoute population. So much of the very core of american culture is, still, puritan and deeply god-fearing. The notion of the first thanksgiving is one of a feast held to honor god for providing.

Yet, we are also the nation that has Separation of Church and State written into the most basic foundation of our culture, the constitution.

Thus we have Thanksgiving and Christmas days as national holidays, yet we’re not able to call it christmas in school anymore, we have to refer to ‘winter holidays’.

I’m not a christian. In any way. I’ve talked about it before – my atheist upbringing, my lack of any faith or spirituality. I celebrate these holidays as cultural tradition, not as spiritual or religious festival. Yet they’re important to me in a deep and fundamental way. I love the holiday traditions. I love christmas music, lights, tinsel. I love the fall colors, the traditions of ballgames and parades. These are my culture as an american. Dress up and decoration, songs and games, friends and family. Tribe.

But I also know what lies under it all. Deeper than western cultural traditions, deeper than christian gods.

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