America is a relatively young country, so our cultural traditions tend to run a little thin.
When WordPress asks, “What’s a cultural tradition from your country that you love?” I get the feeling they’re expecting something involving centuries-old costumes, ceremonial dances, ancestral recipes and perhaps a village elder ringing a bell that was forged sometime during the Crusades.
I’m an American.
We have Thanksgiving. And fireworks. And football. And apparently the annual tradition of fighting strangers in a Walmart over a television.
Most of what we call cultural traditions are really just holidays. Christmas is half celebration of the birth of Christ and half an economic stress test. Easter somehow combines the Resurrection of Jesus with a rabbit delivering chocolate eggs. The Fourth of July involves hamburgers, fireworks and at least one neighbor who has apparently acquired military-grade explosives. New Year’s Eve mostly consists of staying awake later than we really want to so we can watch a ball fall off a building in New York.
But Thanksgiving is different. At least, I think it is.
Yes, Thanksgiving has its own absurdities. We cook a bird large enough to feed a small infantry unit, then prepare seven side dishes because apparently the turkey was not ambitious enough. We eat until basic movement becomes uncomfortable and then, twenty minutes later, somebody asks whether anyone wants pie.
Of course we want pie. We’re Americans.
There are also traditions within the tradition. Somebody watches the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Somebody watches football. Somebody falls asleep watching football. Somebody insists that the cranberry sauce must be homemade, while someone else knows perfectly well that cranberry sauce is supposed to slide out of a can in one gelatinous cylinder with the ridges still visible.
Families have recipes that only appear once a year. There’s usually at least one dish everyone claims to love even though nobody eats it during the other 364 days. And somewhere in America, at this very moment, two relatives are still arguing about whether marshmallows belong on sweet potatoes.
They do. I’m willing to lose readers over this.
But beneath all of that ridiculousness, Thanksgiving has something that I really do love. Gratitude.
America is not especially good at slowing down. We are always chasing the next thing. A better job. A bigger house. A newer car. Another trip. Another purchase. Another accomplishment. We live in a culture that constantly reminds us of what we don’t have and then helpfully offers to sell it to us.
Thanksgiving asks us, at least for one day, to look at what we already have.
Family. Friends. Food on the table. A roof overhead. Memories of people who once sat at that same table. People who are still there. People who have joined the family since last Thanksgiving. And blessings that probably went unnoticed while we were busy worrying about everything else.
I know the history surrounding Thanksgiving is more complicated than the elementary-school version involving Pilgrims, Native Americans and cheerful construction-paper turkeys. America itself is complicated. Most countries are.
But the idea at the heart of Thanksgiving is still worth keeping.
Stop. Gather. Remember. Give thanks. Then pass the stuffing.
Maybe that’s why Thanksgiving is the American cultural tradition I love most. It manages to be sincere and ridiculous at exactly the same time, which may actually make it the most American holiday we have.
For one day, we gather around a table and remember that life contains things worth being thankful for.
Then we eat pie until we forget how buttons work.
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Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt
