Happy Thanksgiving anyhow

[Richard--W]

I know you are all agnostics and atheists and followers of Nietsche here, but I am not. So you will forgive me if I wish you all a happy day of Thanks and of Giving with your family and friends, full of good food and high spirits.


Richard

 

[Extollager]

Well, not quite all!

I hope everyone enjoys the day. Incidentally, is today's date a notable one in HPL's history, does anyone know? There's such expertise here that I would not be surprised if someone were able to say that on today's date he begun or finished such and such a story, or wrote an enormous letter on one of his characteristic themes, or the like.

DN

 

[j d worthington]

On the spur of the moment, nothing leaps to mind. (Hmmm... unconsciously, I may have carried that metaphor a bit too far....)

However, he certainly wrote about some memorable Thanksgiving celebrations he had, and he certainly enjoyed such holidays.

Incidentally... I've met few atheists/agnostics who actually have any problem with celebrating holidays. They acknowledge their religious origins (though usually, where such are applicable, taking them further back than the Christian aspects most people are familiar with -- as did HPL with Christmas/Brumalia/Saturnalia, etc.), but secular associations have always been woven into the holidays as well; especially those linked to families or communities spending time together, or which celebrate warmth, compassion, forgiveness, etc. Even Charles Dickens, while certainly acknowledging the day's connection to the central portion of the Christian doctrine, had plenty of reasons for holding Christmas in honor which even the most secular among us could agree upon:

"But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

So, though (for very personal reasons) I do not celebrate Thanksgiving myself at present, I have no problem in wishing people a very happy holiday, and that they, too, derive great benefit from what the day offers....

 

[w h pugmire esq]

I'm a practicing Mormon. But Thanksgiving this year was a NIGHTMARE!

 

[J Riff]

Yea,, he wrote one, but it was a real turkey.

 

[ravenus]

As a child I used to think that TG was about the pilgrims thanking the native Americans to help them settle in the new land.

 

[dask]

j.d., Where did this Dickens quote come from? A CHRISTMAS CAROL?
Quote:
"But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"
"Fellow-passengers to the grave." Beautiful!

 

[j d worthington]

Sorry, Dask. For some reason, this thread hadn't been highlighted since I posted on it, so I had not realized anyone else had!!! In answer: yes, it is from A Christmas Carol, Stave 1; it is part of the speech Scrooge's nephew gives when he invites his uncle to spend Christmas with he and his wife....