People don’t usually give a lot of thought to the origins of the holiday. It’s usually seen as just a day when you stuff yourself silly with family that you mostly like, and then go back to getting ready for Christmas.

If it gets any attention, it’s often depicted as marking the beginning of the conquest of North America by the English. I have to wonder what the natives actually thought of it at the time – if there actually was some sort of celebratory feast.

If there was, I suspect it was about the formation of an alliance between the English and the Wampanoag, the local tribe. As I understand it, the situation in south east “New England” was that there were a lot of small tribes in an ever-shifting network of alliances. The English could have been seen as just another tribe, so any celebration could have marked the acceptance of the English settlers into that network. That it took place at the end of harvest season (so we are told) is a mere coincidence.

Actually, there’s a long tradition of harvest festivals in places where winter is a time of darkness and privation. You’ve brought in and stored all the crops, killed all the livestock you can’t afford to keep alive through the winter – and preserved as much of the meat as you can, and gotten everything else ready for the cold and dark. A perfect time to have a big party and gorge yourself on all the late-ripening crops (nuts, root vegetables….) and what birds haven’t yet migrated away (pheasant). And if you’re lucky, any meat that you don’t have room to store.

So, if you want to get rid of all the political baggage that comes with Thanksgiving these days (and I’m not talking about that uncle who insists on talking about his conspiracy theories and how one political party is going to bring us to ruin), just skip all of it and celebrate the end of the harvest season as you get ready for winter.

And stuff yourself silly.