Make gratitude a holiday tradition
This has been a tough year for me in a lot of ways, as I’m sure it has been for a lot of people. That’s why I’m resurrecting an old personal custom for the holidays: a gratitude tree.
The custom started years ago, when I had just begun a new job at the Jackson (Mississippi) Clarion-Ledger. I was so low on the seniority totem pole that I had no time off accrued, so I knew that I would be stuck in a strange town with virtually no local friends over the holidays.
“Well, this can’t stand,” I remember thinking. “If I can’t go to friends and family, I’ll have to bring them here to me somehow.” But I wasn’t sure how to do that, and the thought parked itself in the back of my mind.
I had chosen a little Christmas tree that year, small enough that it wouldn’t make a huge mess if one of my pesky pets knocked it over. On a whim, I decided to decorate it with gingerbread people, and, when the cookies were baked, I began to ice them.
Little eyes, some form of clothing (because naked gingerbread people just didn’t seem right), as I began to decorate them, something gelled: The first one made me think of my sister, Tamsen. I wrote her name on it, clumsily, for I am not a cake decorator by any means. One after another, I thought of the people I loved, so far away, and iced their names onto my cookies. Some had crazy eyes, others had silly grins. It didn’t matter. I thought of a spe
cific person, and of something that I loved about them, as I worked on each cookie. They were all rudimentary, but they had meaning to me.
By the time I was done, and hung all those gingerbread people on the tree, I realized that I had created a special gift for myself: a reminder that my life was filled with people whom I adored. Whatever the outside of my life looked like, I had provided myself with visible proof that I had much to be grateful for.
Gratitude is a funny thing. It doesn’t cost anything, yet it changes your outlook completely. Some evidence even suggests that it has a host of benefits for the body, mind and emotions, from better sleep to better relationships.
So this year I’m going to be grateful for what I have — amazing friends; happy, healthy animal companions; a lovely life in a vibrant city; and much more. Whether times are tough or bountiful, being reminded to be grateful makes sense to me.
If you’d like to adopt this custom, I’ve supplied you with the recipe that I’ll use for gingerbread people. I’ll fly solo this Thanksgiving, so I’ll bake them over the long holiday weekend. I’ll decorate them with the names of far-flung friends and those beloved ones who have gone on before me.
If you are fortunate enough to host a big crowd, I think it would be fun to pass out the cookies after Thanksgiving dinner and let everyone present decorate one to represent themselves — or someone they love. Invite your guests to take their people home or collect them to hang on your own tree.
And if you can’t resist eating one — this really is a terrific gingerbread — apologies to its person are in order.
Gratitude, said 19thcentury American poet Henry Van Dyke, “is the inward feeling of kindness received. Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling. Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse.”
My wish for you is that your Thanksgiving will be filled with gratitude, whatever your circumstances may be.
Robin Mather is a longtime food journalist and the author of “The Feast Nearby,” a collection of essays and recipes from a year of eating locally on a very tight budget.