Our Last Thanksgiving

This year is the first year we will be bringing all of our vegan treats with us to our families' houses, last year we were vegan, but still in transition really, so we fudged this day by being vegetarian so as not to upset the transition too much. So this year, we will be having Almond-Crusted Seitan, Haertel Stack Biscuits, Mashed Potatoes with Miso Gravy, Mango Cranberry Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing, Haertel Stuffing, and Pumpkin Cheese Cake! All washed down with Buttered and Spiced Apple Cider!

But while I was going over the list, something kept nagging at me...it is so much food...so much more than I ever make at once...unless it's Christmas...and while my mama explains the holiday to her littles so beautifully, "it's a day we are thankful for the Indians, who gave the pilgrims food when they had none..." those pilgrims are our ancestors...so how are we "thanking" the Indians by making a national holiday out of it? I always sweep it under the rug with a passive, "with honor. We are honoring the Indians, like we do our troops on Memorial Day, and taking a day off for dead soldiers no more thanks them than Thanksgiving does the Native Americans, but we still honor them both because we dedicate the holiday to them." And I go ahead and get excited to see family, and start my food making. Yes, it's only Wednesday, and I had biscuit batter ready two days ago!

Then Brandan came home, and I shared our feast plans with him, sparing no detail, because he usually enjoys hearing what kind of feast we are having, no matter what the occasion. But the Lord works in mysterious ways, and to my surprise my husband replied, "I don't know why we celebrate Thanksgiving!" I thought he meant because it was such a hassle to be vegan this holiday, and I assured him it was fun, and just the right amount of challenge, plus we would be "saving a turkey" by not eating one this year! (He always feels good after I tell him how many animals he's saved. He's so kind, and always been so, he even admitted before we became vegan that he did not support catch and release fishing, because most of the baited fish will die later from infection from the hooks ripped out of their mouths, and the fisherman doesn't even eat it! That's my kind-hearted man!) But that was not the issue this year! Instead he said rather flustered, "No! We celebrate a culture that we [decimated] (paraphrased out his vulgarity) by stuffing our faces until we are sick!" He went on with his disgust for the holiday, and finished with, "...maybe this is the last year we celebrate Thanksgiving?"

And so it will be! Our minds are always in sync like that, it's so awesome, but he is right, it's almost like we are rubbing it in their faces by eating everything we can manage to get down from the land that we took from them. Sounds really "thankful" doesn't it?!

Instead, we will be donating everything we would have spent on a Thanksgiving dinner to a Native American foundation every year until the end of our days. Then maybe we will have made up for some of the lost time in repaying the favor!

Here are a couple of good ones:

National Relief Charities

Strong in Traditions and Values, But Lacking in Resources

American Indian College Fund