Thanksgiving is a complicated holiday – especially this year

The US grinds to a halt during this long weekend but not everyone is stopping to celebrate, writes Holly Baxter

Turkey and sweet potato with marshmallows are on the menu (Getty)

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States, where everything winds down and people go back to their family homes for a traditional dinner of turkey, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie and sweet potato with marshmallows (yes, really). The sitting president ceremoniously pardons a turkey bound for the Thanksgiving table. Pictures of active military members receiving a donated dinner appear on TV screens across the nation.

More than Christmas, this is the time when New York suddenly empties out. Restaurants shutter, bars close down, and Times Square goes quiet. This is a pan-American, cross-religion celebration – or a time to take stock and gather together in quiet reflection, if you’re an Indigenous family who refers to the day instead as the National Day of Mourning.

There is a mournful feeling in the air, too, in Wisconsin today. Just days ago, a Ford SUV was driven into a crowd at an early Christmas parade in the small town of Waukesha, killing five at the scene. Another victim died later in hospital. Sixty people were injured additionally.

As the US opinion editor, I take phone calls with our reporters on the ground after incidents like these make headlines. After the immediate news has been taken care of, I usually phone our correspondents to ask them what the atmosphere is like and whether there’s a comment piece they would like to write to further illustrate what happened. This morning, I spoke with our news reporter Sheila Flynn, who has been on the road for a while now; just last week, she wrote of her experiences outside the courthouse in Kenosha as Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty. She was then deployed to Chicago – before being told to head right back to the state of Wisconsin following the unexpected Waukesha attack. Life as an American reporter is rarely ever predictable.

Sheila said that she’d spent the morning helping residents of Waukesha to hang Thanksgiving decorations. It was poignant, she said. The show is going on, but with a sense of deep sadness. People haven’t sought to politicize the attack – which Fox News has accused of being perpetrated by a “BLM militant”, even running an article which criticized other media organizations for supposedly not going hard on the suspect because he is Black – even though they do relish the opportunity to tell a travelling reporter all their personal views. Many are left wondering how to celebrate the long-awaited Thanksgiving weekend with such a long shadow cast over it.

I’ll be celebrating this federal holiday with some kind friends who take in “Thanksgiving orphans” every year. As a British expat, I don’t have any nostalgic feelings about the day. It has a complicated history, and can stir up some difficult conversations. However, as one writer for Voices whose teenage daughter talked her into cancelling celebrations described this week, it’s still possible to mark an “Unthanksgiving” in a respectful and thoughtful way. As with the story in Waukesha, nuance is the name of the game.

Yours,

Holly Baxter

US opinion editor