Hello All.
I know it has been almost 4 months since I posted, but I'm back.🥳Unfortunately, after my favorite Holiday (👻Halloween👻). 🥲I couldn't even post my Halloween stuffs.😔 I'll just have to make up for it another year!
Anyway, let's get right to it, shall we?
Today, I've got Thanksgiving and Native American Heritage Day on the brain--with a little dash of Christmas (we will get to that in a moment).
I'm an American so of course we are all used to Thanksgiving here, but I think it is strange to celebrate Thanksgiving without remembering that Native Americans were the reason that we should have been thankful in the first place. For their sacrifices, their humble nature, and their willingness to teach the very people who would one day bring about much of their ruin. Of course, we should also celebrate their survival and their innovative minds that furthered America as we know it today. I mean, could one imagine modern day America without rubber, suspension bridges? Without corn? I think not.
Considering that I have Blackfoot (my great grand parents on my father's side of the family) and Cherokee (great, great grand parents on my mother's side) Native blood coursing through my veins, I feel like my lack of thanks for their roles in my freedom and life today is shameful. I realized that America has a way of continuing to drown out those aspects of my culture and identity just as much as these as a Black person. My Black heritage, however, has very little to offer me besides my parents, and three out of four grandparents. I cannot pinpoint the tribes that gave me the other part of my blood and unfortunately, all of my grandparents and greats passed young. This isn't an uncommon occurrence for Black families in America, but it makes me all the more grateful for knowing a single thing about the rest of my familial line.
Still, thinking about this both frustrates and humbles me. To such a point that I have started to incorporate more of this history into my life. But it was also in this time that I was making peace with my inner storms and the like this month that something else happened.
Christmas bells, chestnuts roasting on open fires, Mirah Carrey's "All I Want for Christmas" (which is apparently getting its own animated film), and Santa Claus began making their appearance before November turkey and Native dances. Can't we have feathers before ornaments around here? The stuff is everywhere you turn. In the stores, flooding social media..what an endless cycle before its time. And all of this after I have hardly processed the end of Halloween chocolates, scary movies, and hocus pocus decorations. 😩 The audacity of Christmas. I mean, C'mon.
On the bright side, this is the only time of the year that the amount of hot chocolate I drink on a regular basis isn't scrutinized. In summer people think I'm nuts. October through November? Everyone's just riding the wave. Haha.
Still, let's all be a little mindful for the end of November, yeah?