This week, Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving again. We have done so annually on the last Thursday in November since 1863. It has grown into one of our most anticipated and cherished holidays, kicking off a season of holidays that stretch to the new year.
How should we celebrate Thanksgiving in 2024? We certainly should mark the day with good food, time with family, and watching football.
This year, we also should commit to making Thanksgiving a patriotic holiday. Patriotism is a manifestation of love, particularly love of one’s country. We connect patriotism with other holidays, such as the Fourth of July and both Veterans Day and Memorial Day. On July 4, we express our love for America by commemorating her birth and recommitting to her enduring principles as articulated in the Declaration of Independence. On Veterans Day and Memorial Day, we love our country by celebrating those who served to protect and perpetuate the United States, including those who gave “the last full measure of devotion.”
Thanksgiving provides another angle to exercise the love that is American patriotism. An important element of loving someone or something is gratefulness about her or about it. When counting our blessings, we should think not just as family members, workers, and friends but also as citizens.
Americans need to be reminded of our many reasons for giving thanks. We can give thanks for our past. Our country was founded on the principles of equality and liberty. “All men are created equal” has been the true north of our moral compass since the beginning. The natural right to liberty — the unleashing of human beings to pursue excellence — has fed the amazing feats of mind, heart, and body accomplished by Americans across the centuries. We stand on the shoulders of George Washington, James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, and many unknown, hard-working, virtuous men and women who have made the good in our lives possible.
We also can give thanks for our present. Most Americans believe our country is on the wrong track. They have reasons to think that way. We have come out of a series of domestic traumas over the last decade and now watch crisis after crisis develop on the international stage. Yet, even today, we retain cause for gratefulness. America remains an economic powerhouse, capable of supporting the rise of countless citizens out of poverty. This nation still takes care of each other, as recent natural disasters have proven. And America remains a bastion of freedom, still comprising the last, best hope among nations for keeping the fire of equality and liberty lit.
With these points in mind, we can be grateful for our future as well. Many have called the 20th century the American century. Will we say the same toward the close of the 21st? Of course, we do not know, but we still have the power to decide.
How can we? In part, we can do so by being thankful. We can only be thankful for our past if we truly understand what made it great. We can only appreciate our present by comprehending the good that remains.
If we can do both, we can know our path forward. That path will take into account our present challenges. It will take on the problems regarding technology, tyranny abroad, and unrest at home.
But our best path forward must involve one of the greatest manifestations of gratefulness: respectful imitation. In our thanks, let us imitate the commitment to equality and love of liberty found in our Declaration. Let us gratefully strive for excellence to overcome the challenges we face. Let us be thankful for America and work only to increase the reasons for such thankfulness for future generations.
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Adam Carrington is an associate professor at Ashland University.