Thanksgiving: The Forgotten Holiday

I was at the mall this weekend and was reminded of a depressing trend in our nation.

It seems Thanksgiving is being forgotten.

The whole mall decorates for Halloween, but the moment All Hallows Eve is over you can’t walk through the mall without dodging elves, hearing Jingle Bells, or struggling with red/green color blindness. Orange becomes red, bats become garland, and Frankenstein becomes Santa. By walking through the mall, listening to the radio, or watching TV an immigrant might believe there was no holiday at all snuggled into the 4th Thursday of November. So what happened to Thanksgiving?

I’m sure part of it has to do with the fact you can’t really “sell” Thanksgiving. On Halloween you sell costumes and candy. On Christmas you sell everything else and candy. Honestly though, on Thanksgiving it’s hard to sell anything other than turkey. Maybe that’s the reason. We live in America, you can’t sell thankfulness.

Or maybe it’s the religious aspect of it. The Pilgrims escaped the dictatorial church of England and traveled to a country where their religious beliefs could be practiced without persecution. Our country was founded by people who believed the Bible, had faith in God, and strove to live a Christian life. In fact, the first Thanksgiving was held because they wanted to thank God that they didn’t all die that first winter. I guess I can see why the average American would want to forget that (note: this phrase is dripping with sarcasm).

But what about the good reasons! The Pilgrims, regardless of your religious bent, are the fathers of our country! Their the fathers of millions of people in the US. I happen to be one of them. My ancestry goes straight back to Elder William Brewster. By marriage I’m related to one of the guys who instigated the first Thanksgiving, and there are millions of people like me. C’mon, whatever happend to family unity?

Then there are the selfish reasons for Thanksgiving: you get a day off of work, you get holiday pay, it’s an excuse to over-eat and have family and friends over, and if you have stock in the turkey industry you might make some money!

Why is Thanksgiving disappearing and how long will it be before it’s gone? For me Thanksgiving is an amazing time . . . read Moriahjoy’s aricle if you want to feel are warm and snuggly; I did (http://moriahjoy.wordpress.com/).

Thanksgiving is beautiful and wonderful . . . don’t let Thanksgiving fall out of favor like the dreaded “sweetest day!”

The Golden Compass: The Godly Contest

With all the hype surrounding the December premier of The Golden Compass I decided to give the book a try. I was especially interested in the series after I heard the author was an extremely outstanding writer.

So I did what any good reader would do . . . I looked the book up on-line. What surprised me was that I found more than I bargained for. Apparently a whole bunch of people are up in arms over the His dark Materials trilogy. Well, like any good reading/writing/discerning/human being, I’m going to read the The Golden Compass and come to an intelligent conclusion for myself. Not that I discount the opinions of others, quite the contrary, but no one should talk about an issue unless they know what they’re talking about. I plan on knowing what I’m talking about.

I did the same thing when Harry Potter came out it; the books were shrouded in controversy and people were saying a lot of insane things on both side of the issues. On one front people supported real-life witchcraft (stupid) and on the other they wrote books called Harry Potter and the Bible, which was a “theological” essay on the sin of Harry Potter (not all that good of an idea concerning their arguments weren’t the most biblical).

After reading the entire series . . . three times each . . . and once I read the entire thing out loud (all 7 books), I made my final conclusion.

Drum role please. 

I don’t have any serious problems with Harry Potter. The biggest disagreement I have is with Rowling’s recent un-literary addition of Dumbledore’s sexuality. Other than that it’s all debatable, and I won’t take the time now to debate them . . . we’re talking about another children’s book

I’ve read the first two chapters of The Golden Compass and I’m starting to see two things. 1. The author is an amazing writer, and 2. I know why everyone’s up-in-arms. Sure, Phil Pullman’s an atheist, and though everything he does will be colored by his beliefs, that doesn’t mean all of his works will expressly deal with his atheistically philosophical bent. As far as I know J.K. Rowling doesn’t believe in God either but her books don’t broach the subject in any degree. Yet, it’s very obvious from the first chapter, that Pullman’s anti-organized-church-predisposition is a main character in his series.

So I did some more research on-line this morning and found this . . .    

“http://snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp”

Though sites like this can be a dime a dozen, this particular site is well represented. I wish the information this site was untrue, but I’m pretty sure it holds more than water. What this doesn’t mean is I’m not going to read the books, but- like Harry Potter- it’s good to know what you’re looking for. In short, I still plan on giving the series a chance. If I can support it I will, but if I can’t, having read the books, I’ll be able to fight against it better.

Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but my opinion is that no atheist should be spreading lies to a generation of impressionable children; especially when they put out a high-voltage, watered-down version of it to get kids to buy the trilogy only to find out the books hold a blatant message. I say to Pullman the same thing I said to Rowling . . . if you have a belief system don’t hide it to sell books/movies.

Pullman, at least be honest about the fact you want to kill God when they make your movie. Don’t shroud the film in innocence so you can sell your books.