Today is not Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. It’s one of the few that’s observed by the entire country (store closings are second only to Christmas), but what really stands out for me is that it’s our most celebrated national holiday. Everywhere else in the world, today is just another Thursday.

I’m having just another Thursday in Santiago, Chile. The only evidence I have that today is a holiday is that my Twitter and Facebook are getting fewer posts than normal.

My CruiseWise cofounders here have offered to do something to celebrate Thanksgiving. They’ve both come to the U.S. in the last few years, so it’s interesting to hear them talk about their Thanksgiving experiences. One said he didn’t think he’d really gotten the full experience because all he’d done was sat around and eaten too much with some of his friends. It took me a minute, but I realized: that’s exactly what Thanksgiving *is.*

Thanksgiving has no ceremonies, no requirements for any day but Thursday, and that one requirement is that you eat with people you like. I used to associate Thanksgiving with returning home, seeing family, and meeting up with childhood friends, but now that I don’t go back to Iowa every year, I think of it as a very long weekend that demands nothing of me but dinner. Say what you will about turkey, but I think friends, family, and relaxation are the essence of the day. Even WikiHow’s article on how to celebrate Thanksgiving uses half its space to discuss food and the other half describing how to relax in different ways!

That’s why I’m not ‘doing anything’ for Thanksgiving this year when I’m half a world away. There are no ceremonies to pantomime and expressing the true meaning of the holiday would mean spending the next four days lounging around. I think we’ll keep building a product instead.