I will be the oldest male at this Thanksgiving dinner. Tradition has it that I am to say grace over the meal. I don’t have my father or father-in-law to rely on this year, and I don’t want to make a fool of myself in front of our dozen or so guests.
“God is great, God is good. Let us thank him for our food” just isn’t going to do.
Therefore, I want to know ahead of time what I’m going to say rather than just wing it.
I’m lapsed Assemby of God (think Jimmy Bakker), and my wife is lapsed Catholic (think Inquisition). As a consequence, through 26 years of marriage we’ve never said grace at mealtimes and I’m a bit at a loss.
I want to be appropriate without being too religious. I want to be brief but complete. I want to be meaningful but not overly weighty. I want to be sincere but not cloying.
Start with something like “We have much to be thankful for this year:” and list something nice about everyone at the table if you can–if there are too many people, just hit the highlights, most impressive things, and then make a general statement about health and togetheness. Then close with "We hope that next year may find us [one or two things] " No need to be specific about who you are thanking or who might be listening to your hopes.
I’ll be in the same gravy boat this year as Algernon, except that my elderly and devoutly religious parents will be there; however, since it’s at my house, Pop has made it clear that the head of the household should say grace. I’m thinking about ignoring my atheism for my parents’ sake and hauling out the old Episcopal grace I used to say back in the day – thanking God for the blessings of this life, for friends and family and asking for His plessing on the food to the nourishment of our bodies that we may do His work on earth, in the name of the trinity, etc. I really don’t want to, but I’ll probably put the decision off until the last minutes.
I know of some friends who don’t say grace, but do compose a really nice toast to start major feasts. Rather than “thanking” some unnamed bestower of health and wealth, they express their joy in friends and family and thank those of us gathered with them for making their lives richer and more worthwhile … something like that.
Instead of you being the sole person giving thanks, say that you would like to start a new tradition and have each person say what they are thankful for. You would say something innocuous about being thankful for family and friends then pass it on to the next person. Each individual can then be as religious or secular as they want.
There are times when I am extraordinarily grateful for all of you on the SDMB. This is one of those times.
This one is near perfect for what I was looking for. Thank you Anne Neville.
To appease my religious relatives though I might substitute “May we appreciate…” with “Thank You for…”. Or not. I’ll have to think about it. Either way I think I’ll start with Manda JO’s suggestion of “We have much to be thankful for this year:”
I have to say though, that if I could do an Elvis voice I’d be sorely tempted to do hotflungwok’s suggestion.
And I’m going to convince my 20-something kids to do the Addams Family grace with me this weekend (but not for the big formal dinner – maybe when we have our pumpkin and apple pie desserts later in the day). It is hilarious.
Thank you all so much for your responses. I appreciate it.
(Hmmm. Maybe I should add “Thank You for our Straight Dope membership, and remember those who have to do without.”)
Happy Thanksgiving!
Oh. One more thing. While I suspect this post will be a thread killer, I’m still open to other ideas.
It’s kind of silly to pretend you believe in god if you don’t. Can’t you just thank those people who have made a difference in your life? The appropriate “blessing” would be an honest one.
I have no problem cloaking my own beliefs to respect the beliefs of others. I don’t feel that’s being dishonest. Simply considerate. Any religious connotations are meaningless to me, but not to others, so I don’t see any reason to go out of my way to avoid them.
Actually, I’m a little concerned about that myself. It resonates with me emotionally.
We thank thee then, O Father, for all things bright and good,
The seedtime and the harvest, our life our health our food,
No gifts have we to offer for all thy love imparts
But that which thou desirest, our humble thankful hearts
I’m assuming this is late, but my father-in-law, a very religious former-baptist-minister-turned-protestant always gives the same type of grace - “Lord, we thank you for this food, and for the company of our families, blah blah blah” - easy enough to ad-lib, not as religious as I expected when I met him.
