What happened to Thanksgiving?

I’m in trouble. I believe I’ve lost time. I went to bed on Halloween and when I woke up November 1st, it was already Christmas. Everywhere I turned witches, bats, ghosts and goblins had morphed into Santas, snowmen, twinkling lights and tinsel.

What happened to Thanksgiving?

Did I pull a Robert Louis Stevenson and miss the entire month of November? I’ve always thought that traveling in a time machine would be pretty cool, but I’d hoped that when I did I’d wake up with fewer wrinkles, lots more money, and a pair of perkier – well, you get my point. What I didn’t want to happen was to skip directly from scavenging the good candy from the bottom of the Halloween bowl to facing cranky shoppers and more credit card debt.

It’s a mystery to me where Thanksgiving has gone. I know it used to be the holiday directly before Christmas and I know that to many Thanksgiving was simply a full day of rest before the mad rush to Toys R Us or Mayfair Mall, but to me Thanksgiving was the holiday that defined what it meant to be an American. I loved everything about Thanksgiving, with the exception of pumpkin pie. In my opinion, the pumpkin as a dessert has got to be the most overrated culinary con since Rachel Ray. A pumpkin can be a ride to the ball or a scary lantern, but it is not a sweet treat at the end of one of the best meals of the year.

Growing up in Scotland, Thanksgiving didn’t exist as a national holiday. Why would it? When the Pilgrims packed their stuffing recipes with their Puritan ideals and set sail, we British said “cheerio and behave yourselves.”  
In Scotland, we do have all the other biggies, though. We have Valentine’s Day, Easter, Bank holidays, our own versions of Memorial and Labor Days, and, of course, Christmas, which begins in December and encompasses a few of weeks of frenzied family gatherings, parties and pantomimes, all culminating in the biggest celebration of the season, New Year’s Eve, or Hogmanay as it’s called.  In some parts of Scotland, Hogmanay celebrations can make Mardi Gras blush.

Consequently, when my family immigrated to America in 1976, we embraced all things American. Our first Thanksgiving was our chance to celebrate a holiday that only Americans celebrated.  To us Thanksgiving was a quintessentially American tradition, borne out of the nation’s peculiar past, albeit a messy and not nearly as romantic as we’d like to remember past, but unique nonetheless.  My family wanted to embrace all of it, families and friends gathering to celebrate nothing more than each other, rejoicing that all have survived another year, no matter how battered or brilliant, no matter how tremendous or trying. At Thanksgiving none of that mattered.

In those first few years when we seemed so far from home, Thanksgiving gave us a chance to think about all the reasons we’d come to America in the first place. It seemed to me then as an outsider and it still does now after thirty years that Thanksgiving is the one holiday that we all truly share. No matter where we live, what we look like, or what we believe, on Thanksgiving we all share a meal together. Thanksgiving gives us all permission to pause and nourish ourselves.

So I’m troubled about what has happened to Thanksgiving, and I really hope we can find it again. Until then I have to tell you I will not be dragged into the department store holiday sales, I refuse to recognize the presence of decorations, and I certainly will not listen to radio stations prematurely pandering the season.

During December, I’ll give and receive with the best of them, but not right now. It’s not that time yet.

Cheers,

Carole

Change for the Better

This November I'll be able to vote in my first Presidential election, and I'm thrilled to see that the election is drawing more people my age into the political process because this means that politicians will have to pay attention to the needs and concerns of the under 25 crowd.

Through such resources as MTV and MySpace, young people have easier opportunities to get informed.  Almost all the candidates have ideas for specific programs that will help the young people of America.  A recent poll on MTV asked who young people thought worked hardest to get the support of young voters.  The poll showed Barack Obama on top.  This is not too surprising considering he has programs in mind to help young people (affordable health care, increasing the funding for college) and stances on major issues that young people can understand and support. 

Yet, despite this, not even half of my peers caucused in Minnesota last winter plan to vote in the Presidential Election.  Why do so many young people still choose not to vote?  For me, it was never a question of if I wanted to vote.  In my mind voting is an obligation as an intelligent and functioning member of a democratic society. 

I decided to find out from my peers why they were not voting.  Overwhelmingly, there were only two answers:  “I don’t do politics!” or “It’s not like one vote makes that big of a difference anyways…”

These responses can be easily refuted.  A person living in a democracy does politics every single day when you write a copay at the doctor's office or return your library book and no one cares what you were reading.  And if the 2000 election taught us anything, it taught us that every single vote makes a big difference.  

Despite every celebrity who “rocks the vote” and every politician who works to convince young people that their “vote really does count!” it’s not convincing everyone.  Something needs to be done to convince my peers that voting is important, worthwhile, and, yes, I'll say it, exhilarating.  

I think politicians like Barack Obama are a step in the right direction.  Young people can relate to an Oprah-adored, 40 something, racially diverse man much easier than they can relate to a 70 something, white man who is just more of the same nonsense that has been plaguing our country for the past eight years.  It also helps when candidates, like Barack Obama, have specific plans that will directly affect the young.  

I don’t have a better answer as to what can be done to convince every young voter to go out and vote.  However, I do know that the future is going to be scary if large groups of us who are that future refuse to "do politics", don’t think their vote counts, and don’t even bother to get informed on issues.  Ignorance is not okay and being apathetic does not make the problems go away.

All I know, is that for my part, I'll keep harassing my peers and try to persuade them to vote because this is our chance to let our voices be heard and to create change for the better.

Clare Barrowman Casey
September 2008

Blog update coming soon

March Madness

 

March is a crazy month in the Barrowman Casey family. First, we have birthdays: my husband, my brother, and one of my nephews have birthdays within a week of each other. John’s is first. Actually, Andrew, my middle brother’s birthday is the first of the siblings. His is February. John’s is March. Mine is April. I’d like to say that my parents like order, but I think it’s really that they like to have sex (ew! can you say that about your parents?). Between the birthdays, we have St. Patrick’s Day, which, having married a Casey, is a day for me to eat an American version of Irish soda bread and wear more green than I usually do. Then it’s midterms at my college and the pile o'papers and projects I have to read increases dramatically – I know. I know. If I didn’t assign so much I wouldn’t have to read so much, but where’s the fun in that? After midterms, we had our Spring/Easter break, and this year we got more frickin’ snow. Stop it already!

Clare came home from university for her spring break and we watched some trashy TV, some movies, and shopped. We saw Horton Hears a Who in the theatre. Loved it. Watched Enchanted on DVD. Loved it even more. I think Clare has now seen Enchanted 223 times. Clare may know the starting line ups of the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Twins, but she also knows the dialogue to every Disney movie with a princess in it (she bleeds glitter). Plus she loves ‘McDreamy.’

Over the Easter weekend John was in Toronto filming the early rounds of Canada’s version of ‘How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria,’ which will run sometime in June and July (maybe if you’re from Canada and reading this you can let me know when). We all didn’t want John spending his Easter by himself so Clare flew to Toronto to hang with him for the weekend. When the two of them get together, it’s a bit like the outrageous older brother and his rowdy little sister so I’m pretty sure they were quite a few silly antics in the Toronto hotel (things I never hear about in any detail until months after the fact). At least they were both allowed out of the country. John slept most of the way home in the plane. Clare crashed when she got back to her apartment.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working with John on his concert programme. For those of you who are lucky enough to have tickets – wow, what a night you’re going to have. My parents will be with him for the entire tour. Say 'hello' if you see them.

All for now. I have to go read papers.

Cheers,

Carole

Reality and Laundry

It’s been almost two weeks since I got back from the Book Tour and I’m finally caught up, mostly anyway, with stuff at home and at work. I’ve reconnected with my students (somehow they all survived without me), and I’ve reminded Turner he does have a mother. Poor Kevin. I think he was too busy shoveling snow and chipping ice for the ten days I was gone to miss me too much. For those of you in warmer climates, Milwaukee has had record-breaking snow this winter. Before I left for the UK we had 14 inches in one overnight storm. Needless to say, we are all getting a bit tetchy about the white stuff. Snowmen are no longer cute; they’re evil incarnate. The snowdrifts are so high our driveway looks like a bobsled run.

I have to admit, though, all this white stuff can’t dampen the high I’m still on from the book signings, especially when the record numbers at the signings put Anything Goes at number two last week and number three this week on The Sunday Times bestseller list. Woohoo!!

Clare was home from university for her winter break last week so, of course, we had to celebrate. Clare is a lot like her Uncle John. Guess what we did? Shoe shopping. We even found some for her uncle. Everyone in our family knows every one else’s sizes so we never miss a bargain for ourselves or anyone else when we shop. Now that’s family values.

As many of you know, John and I cruised at high speed when we were signing to make sure we got through as many books as possible, but what you may not have noticed is that sometimes John would flip the book toward me so fast that in order to keep up I’d start to sign while his sleeve or his arm was still in the way. Not only did he have indents on his fingers at the end of the tour, but he also had Sharpie lines on his skin, plus at least one ruined sweatshirt from where he encroached on my side of the table.

When I arrived home from the tour, it took me awhile to unpack (remember I had one entire suitcase just filled with Percy Pigs). I finally emptied the cases, and I was carrying my wash downstairs when I slipped. I bounced down five (believe me I counted every frickin’ one) hardwood stairs on my tailbone. Now I have to say, I’ve experienced childbirth, a tattoo, two root canals, and I sat all the way through the last Bond movie and bouncing down hardwood stairs on my tail bone is right up there in the pain department. So there I was weeping softly, flat on my back on the kitchen floor, blanketed in my dirty laundry, my ass throbbing, thinking, yup, back to reality. Welcome home.

As the days and weeks go on I’ll keep posting if you all keep reading.

For now, I’m moving slowly. Very.

Cheers,
Carole