It's Thanksgiving. Brace for Impact.

How about no lectures about our history on the best day of the year?

I love Thanksgiving. I loved it as a kid when my grandmother would spend days peeling green apples and then dropping them into a bowl of cold lemon water to keep them from browning. Her house would smell like garlic and cinnamon. We would extend her dining room table to seat more people, and there would always be a kids’ table where we would sit. Her house was always so packed you could barely move around in it. But when it was Thanksgiving, it had to be done.

My grandmother taught me how to bake pies. I insisted in her last years that she tell me her secrets. She doubled the pumpkin and cinnamon. She always used ice water to firm up the dough. Though she’s been gone for years, I still think of her whenever I roll out pie crust.

In the last days of her life, she would make mistakes, like cooking her apple pie with salt instead of sugar. When Thanksgiving moved to my brother’s house in Ojai, my grandmother would insist on bringing the turkey. Once, she was so late that the turkey in her trunk didn’t arrive until three hours after dinner began.

Now, I’m happy to say, I’ve passed the tradition down to my daughter, who is baking three pies for this year’s holiday. I won’t be with my own family. I’ll be with her new family. We’ll all be strangers to each other, sharing time and food. That is what Thanksgiving means to me, our shared reality of a vast American family.

Thanksgiving is an idea, like America is an idea. It’s about a nation filled with people from all over the world who must somehow find a way to get along. It is about a complicated past that requires coming to the table to find kinship and forgiveness.

On this day, there is still tradition. On this day, we all understand at once the meaning of the word “gratitude.”

Whether at my brother’s house, my mother’s house, or, on occasion, when I make my own Thanksgiving dinner at my apartment, it never fails to be the day of days, at least not for me. It says to me warm kitchens and flushed faces. It says closeness and laughter. It says leftovers and bellies full of food. It’s always about escaping the cold outside into the warm inside.

Thanksgiving can happen anywhere, with any food, because ultimately, it’s about gratitude. It’s a moment to lock hands and give thanks, not just for the bounty before you, but for everything that makes life worth living.

Those who came before us to build this new world, the one so many now say doesn’t belong to us, lived much harder lives than we could imagine. That was true whether a Native American or one of the colonists trying to survive a wilderness they did not yet know.

But when you sit down to a meal and give thanks to God or to the universe, it means something. It is an opportunity to be grateful for every minute of life you have lived and every minute you still have left — grateful for your friends and family, that you still have a body you can use, that you have food to eat and that, even if we all disagree about politics, at least we live in a country where we are free to express it.

Despite all of the riches that are undeniably before most of us, there are so many people who see Thanksgiving as an opportunity to complain yet again about how terrible America is. Can’t we just have one day when America isn’t terrible? Just one day to enjoy breaking bread, a good meal, maybe a joke or two?

Why do we have to hear about it? Because it’s unavoidable. Somehow, it is everywhere, even at parades now. When I scroll social media, I have to brace myself for the lectures. So many lectures. I dread it every year. Please don’t, I think. Please, just for once, keep it to yourself.

I am afraid to know what goes on in elementary schools. I am sure they aren’t making little Indian and Pilgrim hats like we all used to wear. I’m sure there is shame involved. So much shame.

But nothing can compare to the influencers online, the poor things, who have been conditioned to see Thanksgiving as a horror show. “We’re boycotting Thanksgiving,” some will say, as though there is a room full of journalists awaiting their stance on the national holiday. “And here’s why…”

Who cares why? No one does. To quote Sideways, SHUT UP. SHUT UP. WILL YOU PLEASE SHUT UP!?

Of course, there is a good solution to that. Don’t go online or scroll TikTok, Twitter, or Facebook on Thanksgiving. Give your mind and heart a rest. Let it be the one day you are allowed not to engage, argue, or debate.

Then again, who knows, maybe people will surprise me. Maybe two wars and dark times makes them want to feel grateful for everything they do have, instead of everything they want to change.

Thank You.

I started this substack three years ago because I could no longer speak freely among my peers and so many I worked with in Hollywood. We lived through a culture of silence and cancelations, where most people were afraid to speak their minds.

In that time, I’ve built a growing community here that I am so grateful for. If I could, I would sit at a long table with you all and break bread. We might not agree about everything. We might not even agree about Thanksgiving, but that’s how I feel about you. Grateful.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for “liking” my newsletter and podcasts. Thank you for subscribing — and for those who are paying subscribers, thank you. Most of all, thank you for the encouragement to keep on writing. I appreciate that more than you will ever know.

I wasn't kidding when I said that this substack saved my life. I hope that whatever you're doing, wherever you are, wherever you're eating, you will have a happy Thanksgiving. At least you know one person in the world is grateful for you and happy you are here.

For people of faith, God bless, and for everyone else, all the best.

Here are some pictures from my road trip from California to Ohio.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Sasha