11/15/2020

My dear Friend, DJT,

         Time to think about Thanksgiving. This year it needs to be different. You can use your bully pulpit to popularize the idea of the Zoom T-day where everyone cooks a mini-feast in their own home & then has virtual gatherings with loved ones. That’s my plan. I have a 14 lb turkey in the freezer that the nice checker at Grocery Outlet talked me into. I’ll defrost it next week, dissect it & brine half the breast in buttermilk for roasting on Nov 26.  The rest will be cooked in various ways for freezing. I’m pondering mini-pies & veggies. Sparking my imagination is helping chase the blues away.

Did you know that Sara Josepha Buell Hale was the force behind making T-day a national holiday? While her most famous text is “Mary had a Little Lamb,” as editor of Godeys Lady Book, she had the eyes of 150,000 influential women who persuaded their husbands that the whole nation should come together to celebrate our blessings.  In the era of the Civil War.”  she saw T-day as “sanctifying promoter” of “national spirit.” She chose the end of fall so that “the funeral-faced month of Nov …(could be) made to wear a garland of joy” & indicated that “The last Thurs in Nov has these advantages -- harvests of all kinds are gathered in -- summer travelers have returned to their homes -- the diseases that, during summer and early autumn, often afflict some portions of our country, have ceased, and all are prepared to enjoy a day of Thanksgiving.”

Well this year disease is everywhere so travelers should NOT return home. We need a new narrative & you are just the guy to promote it. You have such rabid followers. They will do whatever you tell them. So please tweet this message, “Imagine an extraordinary Thanksgiving that you will never forget” & then promise to retweet the most creative responses to folks’ efforts to shelter in place & have mini-feasts. You can set an example by tweeting about your mini-feast at the WH with Melania, Baron, Viktor & Amalija.

         HYITL,