And perhaps I will find myself at a gathering full of people who have made a new meaning for this day.
I'm holiday non-compliant... If I understand that a holiday's roots go against my values, I don't really participate... If I wouldn't have been comfortable celebrating a holiday in its original form, I sort of lose respect for the following generations that watered it down, sugar-coated it or otherwise marketed it.
Do you have any historical sources where you drew your conclusion about Thanksgiving? I'd sincerely like to learn. I don't celebrate it myself but I'm very interested in history.
I took a bit of heat recently because I made a twitter remark about halloween... so far as I know, people were killed to appease spirits in the druid's Samhain (the forerunner to halloween)... To me, that deflates the day, no matter how much candy and marketing gets thrown at it...
Maybe I'm just a prude, but I'm more about following convictions I guess.
I just did a quick search where I expected to find the original article I saw on this that reminded me of this recently, but can't figure out who shared it. In searching I did come across a similar telling of the story, though the overall article is making a different point on the issue:
This is from this article which goes into much more depth about how the holiday actually evolved after multiple attempts to get it off the ground.
This source also makes reference to the same genesis of the first use of the term, though not the first official holiday celebration within the continuous line of the holiday.
I totally see your point in only celebrating (or choosing not to) the genesis intentions of a holiday. This one seems to have some controversy over its genesis story.