I remember, nearly a decade ago, preparing for the start of Thanksgiving at my parents when disaster struck. It was coming up on time for our afternoon feast, and the smell of turkey was conspicuously absent. In fact, no smells permeated the living room where my grandfather and I were enjoying a Heineken. When I went to investigate, I found the oven dead, my dad in the yard firing up the grill. Dinner was late, but we all had a laugh, another beer, and it was one of the most memorable and joyous Thanksgivings in my life. 

This memory is a quaint example of the external stressors that come part and parcel with all holidays. In 2021, those stressors flirt with actual disasters: We have COVID around every corner, bitter partisan politics dividing families and neighbors, economic anxiety everywhere, and inflation creating the most expensive Thanksgiving meal in years. These forces can completely upend the way we celebrate our holidays, but they will never cancel the celebration. My family, for one, will be in quarantine on the other side of the door from my COVID-infected daughter. I will not be sharing a physical table with even my whole immediate family. And yet, I will seek a way to laugh, a way to connect, a way to make a Thanksgiving memory for us all — with home-cooked food, the aid of a video chat, and passed drawings under doors. Memory is made not out of strife but around it. A gathering — no matter what it looks like — is something to sincerely be thankful for. 

Happy Thanksgiving, 

Tyghe Trimble, 
Editor-in-Chief, 
Fatherly