Thanksgiving Mummers?

We can give thanks again this year that Peter Black, an associate lecturer in law at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, who hosted Blawg Review #85 on Freedom to Differ, is hosting Blawg Review #136 so we can enjoy this long holiday weekend gathering together with family, friends, and loved ones, to reinforce the ties that bind us and give thanks for our many blessings.

Thanksgiving Day is an American institution -- one of the few which we have originated and which has become really National. Its primary associations are religious and serious. The strengthening of family ties and the building up of character are among its natural purposes. Good cheer and hospitality rather than a reckless carnival spirit have always been its distinguishing characteristics.

Mummers mummering, on the other hand, appears to be an irrepressible theme around here.

And the carnival spirit seems to be alive and well on Thanksgiving Day in New York City 75 years later. Nothing defines the Thanksgiving holiday like Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Heh.