Every year people gather on Thanksgiving Day for the tradition of giving thanks. This is wonderful. It is wonderful to have everyone gather around that glorious table, hold hands and ponder about the many blessings and the surprising blessings cloaked as unsavory challenges that the preceding year has offered. However, getting to that table is often fraught with difficulties.
If you have to travel by air, Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the year. Air travel is just not the fun it used to be. So, if you are the Thanksgiving event planner, you have to take into consideration all the travel plans and the arrival and departure times of all of your guests as well as transportation to and from the airport.
If you have married children and they are trying to balance that thankful day between their families, imagine their stress! If there are grandchildren, it becomes even more complicated. Some dutiful kids end up eating more than one Thanksgiving dinner, just to please all the relatives.
Freeway/highway traffic can be tremendous, and again, stress producing.
Is there some reason that this particular event has to happen on the specific day that the calendar denotes as ‘Thanksgiving’? Think about it. Why are we wedded to a dictated day of the week once a year?
What if, the actual day you eat the turkey isn't as important as the special time of gratitude you spend with your family? What if you were to make a new family tradition and have Thanksgiving the weekend before that Thanksgiving Thursday? Consider that if you were to do this, that you might find, that your own stress is significantly less, that the stress for your family is also significantly less since now, they won't have to be in two places as once.
What if on that actual crazy Thanksgiving Thursday, you weren't having a cast of thousands, you could actually have a complete day of relaxation? Perhaps you could get your Christmas or Hanukkah decorating begun or even finished. What if you could enjoy a meal out or have a quiet day or could accept someone else's invitation to dinner? If you have family that has to fly, having Thanksgiving a week or two early, would mean less expensive flights, less travel hassle, especially if they are traveling with small children. They could get in and out and avoid the craziness. What if?
What if you changed how you do things just this one year, as an experiment? Some families do this and they just love it! It doesn't mean that we can always please everyone, but it has the potential to be a tremendous anxiety reducer.
What is the karma of an idea this simple? Consider that you reduce the stress for all the people in your Thanksgiving circle, not to mention the persons doing the bulk of the cooking. Let us say that they don’t have to travel, don’t have to choose between families, don’t have to balance other people’s feelings.
Also consider, that the stress of that balancing act can make relatives very ‘testy’ with each other. Sometimes things are said that in another scenario with less tension, would never be said. Once said, a nasty Thanksgiving dinner can be an unhappy memory for a very long time.
If some relatives feel you are a traitor to the day and rebel, then that is their choice, but offer the concept to them that this is just an experiment for this one year. You know how flexible and loving they are and surely, they would want to reduce stress for everyone.
Sometimes family leadership is defined by the ability to look at a situation and change how it is being done, especially if it is always stressful. The purpose of Thanksgiving is the celebration of the gratitude and love you share and you can designate any day of the year you like to do that!
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