The Real Spirit of Thanksgiving

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Throw all cynicism and uncreative muddy feet away. Imagine you are a scriptwriter and have just been commissioned to work on a film titled “Thanksgiving”.

You can approach this in several ways - one long story of a terrible mishap followed almost in a deux ex Machina fashion, a major triumph; terrible tribulation padded by a deluge of tears and soulful songs plus dirge Nollywood/Bollywood style (Never realized they had that something in common) followed by another tears of joy, of dancing and waist swaying. Setting if catering to the Nigerian audience may be a church thanksgiving with a female comedian in the film dancing “bend low bend low” with a low neckline blouse showing her all and sundry to the helpless pastor.

You may also decide that you will string vignettes/ short stories complete in themselves to send the message of thanksgiving. Will the story include a woman who gives birth after a prolonged waiting on the Lord and battling aggrieved in-laws or the woman who gets vindicated through hard dint success after being jilted by her super rich husband who forgot how they started and followed the skirts of young damsels? Is it a mother dancing with joy at her son’s graduation?? ( this sounds familiar to me -no shame); the joy of children dancing over water running from the flowing tap and coming from a long awaited bore hole after years of disappointment from the local government chairman or the joy of escaping the kidnapper’s den alive to tell the story and dancing to let “papa God” how grateful they are.

Roasted turkey which has become the symbol of Thanksgiving celebrated in the US and in some other countries will hardly come to the mind of the Nigerian writer.

In all these instances, thanksgiving becomes a gratitude to God for an incident of good fortune. At this point, thanksgiving remains about what happened to us.

Perhaps a more profound form of thanksgiving comes from being grateful that we are in a position also to help others and to let others tap into our well of thankfulness – the ability to reach out to others in a meaningful way. This is not the cliché act of posing for pictures with a few motherless hungry looking children with flies dancing around their faces, a bag of rice conspicuously positioned (these days with the closure of the border perhaps noodles and yams) followed by the staid press releases distributed for publications and justifying that we are good corporate citizens.

Let us go and share meaningfully, so that more beneficiaries can have cause to be thankful.

I hope we were able to achieve this in the first ever US Food Fair in partnership with American Guest quarters, and American Women’s club to raise funds for United Way and St. KITIZO clinic in Lagos Nigeria last Saturday as a precursor to the Thanksgiving celebration today. Diplomats and their families, employees of US Companies, their friends and US Women joined hands to celebrate Thanksgiving in this special way.

We want to use this opportunity to thank Companies that participated at the Fair and all the people who made this happen especially Joseph Ishie of the American Business Council.

We need to also use this thanksgiving season to thank those who gave beyond money and time to make others live – Princess Diana and her support for the people with AIDs, Mother Theresa and the poor people in India, Dr. Stella Ameyo Adadevoh and how she gave her life to curb Ebola in Nigeria.

Enjoy Thanksgiving!