The Gratitude Between
The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is too often cast as a mere prelude to some more magical season. Time passed, though, is still time gone, and it is for us to make of any span of life something more memorable than the humdrum of early-winter droning.
If Ridgeview were positioned to determine the holiday traditions of the country’s denizens, it would likely be an imitation of Iceland’s Jólabókaflóðið. What a word! It translates as the Christmas book flood, and it began during the Second World War when paper was less strictly rationed in Iceland relative to other goods that might have been given as gifts. As a consequence, every year since 1944, Icelandic booksellers have published Bókatíðindi (a book bulletin) in the leadup to the holiday and mailed it to every home. People use the catalogue to order books for friends and relatives, which they then open on December 24th and promptly read while drinking hot chocolate or Christmas ale.
Ridgeview does not have the privilege of establishing national traditions, but it is both an unabashed champion of giving and an unapologetic defender of reading. If we can be the domestic sponsor of a tradition of giving reading, we will feel cozily at home. And, this year, happily, we will be initiating this new Ridgeview tradition.
The bookshop in our lobby, which is our own little paean to bibliophily, is intended to seduce, tickle, and intrigue. It is a safe harbor in an insane world, a haven from lunacy and extremism and screens, a gentle introduction to a love of language and illustration, and an entrée to a world of poetry, exulted thought, and comic observation. It is what a bookshop should be: a foray into the unexpected, the unknown, the unread, and the unfamiliar. To open a book and silence the world without is an experience to be enjoyed year-round, but it is one that we have an opportunity to share with others more now than at other times of year.
Whether the recipient is marveling over the stories of Robert McCloskey or laughing at bedtime over Bishop’s The Man Who Lost His Head, or learning history (and a little about mankind) in Sutcliff’s novels, or the hard-to-shop-for aunt is giving Agatha Christie a first go, or your hoity-toity-has-read-it-all friend is diving into Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, a book is a gift worth giving for itself and for all it might inspire. It is not, let us hope, a gift given for the giving. That is to say, a book is not typically given for the sake of giving something. The thoughtfulness in its choosing defies that tendency, and unlike other gifts, any choice says something about both the giver and the recipient. Moreover, such gifts typically better withstand the ravages of time and regifting.
What does this leave us with besides a shameless promotion of our little bookshop? Hopefully, it is also an inducement to think deeply and heartfully about those in our orbits over this time between and to try, at least a little, to bring laughter, reflection, and contemplation into their lives. There are, of course, activities other than reading that might do this, but few are so Ridgeviewian as reading.
Contained within this time between is a remarkable holiday, and it is one that speaks to our sense of American exceptionalism in a way few holidays do. The origin of this event that we have mythologized and romanticized occurred in 1621 and lasted for three days as a group of English Dissenters and Wampanoag Indians came together for a great feast. The idea of a thanksgiving was not new to them. Thanksgivings were days of prayer thanking God for blessings before they were days of feasting. Our Thanksgiving only took on its political and legal form in 1863 when Abraham
Lincoln decreed it in the midst of the Civil War. He was responding to a plea from Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, who had petitioned a long string of presidents to create a single, national day of thanks. President Lincoln, unlike his predecessors, did so in quick order.
I would encourage all of us to embrace Thanksgiving and to make it real within our homes this year. It can be a day on which we unashamedly realize our most Rockwellian sentiments and allow our nostalgia to triumph. It can be a day on which political and familial sciamachy subsides long enough for us to breathe freely of the crisp autumn air, to take in the scents of a home-cooked meal, to converse with neighbors and old friends and delight in our children, our health, and our good fortune.
The holiday will be celebrated in different ways of course: some will watch the parade or the game on television, or worship, or volunteer; but, it is likely that each of us has something to be thankful for and someone to thank for it. Take the time to thank them. Set aside your pride and fears of awkwardness. Demonstrate to others that you acknowledge you would be less if it were not for them. Make room in your heart, if not your home, for those who have less, and give them cause to give thanks as well.
These moments are so scarce that it gives us all the more reason to mark them well and make them the bearers of cherished memories. The type of day you have is up to you. Give yourself permission to be less than svelte, eat too much, drag out the board games and cards; throw the football in the yard until your fingers are numb with cold, and the let the young ones play in piles of leaves. Build a fire, grab an old novel, put up your feet, and rejoice in the material and immaterial abundance with which you are suffused.
As you pinch yourself awake to claim that final piece of pie, look to the future and know that it is also a day of hope. It is a hope, easily mocked, but heartfelt nonetheless, that there will yet be more to be thankful for.
Enjoy your turkey, your family, and wine in good cheer and good company. Realize the myth and revel in gratitude, charity, and hope.
Happy (almost) holidays and thank you for being here with us and perusing our shelves.
D. Anderson
Headmaster