Christmas usually edges out Thanksgiving in lists of Americans’ favorite holidays, but this year the annual family gathering around the dinner table is exceptionally well timed and particularly welcome.
As Hawaii continues to recover from the isolating effects of a global pandemic, the trauma of wildfires that devastated a large swath of Maui and, most immediately, from a brutal election season, many people find themselves longing for a moment’s peace.
Today should be that moment: Even if it’s a fleeting one, at least it provides for a pause. But it also could be instructive for the long term to refocus on people within one’s own family and community, and on what’s important to them.
The Lahaina community includes such families. Mau and Ariel Ah Hee and their two sons have moved into their newly rebuilt home in Lahaina, destroyed Aug. 8, 2023, in the blaze.
After having to relocate six or seven times to temporary accommodations, this year’s Thanksgiving truly will bring them something we tend to take for granted: the comfort of home.
More to the point, they expressed their thankfulness to the community that made it possible — twice. First constructed in 2019 through a partnership with the nonprofit Habitat for Humanity, the home was reconstructed again with the cooperative’s help after the fire.
And as in all Habitat projects, those who receive the help building their own homes contribute their own labor to projects for other families as well.
It’s the sort of very local story that restores some faith in humanity. The same kinds of stories have circulated about neighbors helping neighbors elsewhere, heroic efforts enabling other communities to come back after destructive hurricanes and fires across both coasts on the mainland.
Those disasters occurred at the height of a very divisive presidential election campaign, which added to the intense stress and upheaval.
As that political battle resolved, the country was split almost exactly down the middle, a bit more than half elated with the election of Donald Trump, a bit less than half dejected at Kamala Harris’ defeat.
Polls showed that those happy with the outcome had a distinctly rosier outlook on the country’s future, which is not a bad thing. On the losing end, nearly everyone has felt exhausted by the emotional turbulence. For many of those, they turned attention to their inner circle of friends and family and found respite that way.
Again, that’s not a bad thing for self-care, as long as withdrawal is short-lived.
The fact is, this country needs to find ways to solve its problems, and that’s a mission that requires people to connect with each other and engage in that work.
According to a poll by the nonprofit Pew Research Center, Thanksgiving involves much more than the meal. Watching sports and talking about work or school are the Top 2 nonfood activities, each cited by 35% of those surveyed. But “talk about the recent presidential election” comes in third at 26%.
That’s not surprising this soon after Election Day. The trick will be whether we can have that conversation without antagonism, assuming that the holiday has drawn together a mix of Trump and Harris voters.
If it has, Thanksgiving could be an occasion at least to talk with people we may have been avoiding — and it doesn’t have to be about politics.
In the coming weeks and months, it will be time to keep tabs on democracy and resume civil engagement in earnest. Maybe that will be involvement in a project with special meaning.
But today is to be set aside for warm food and congeniality, so we need to enjoy what’s close to us, too. There’s no place like home.
