Thanksgiving Reconsidered

I've been giving Thanksgiving a lot of thought recently, mainly how I want to celebrate and for what reasons.  I value the family tradition and the idea of gratitude, but I'm not really commemorating the meeting of Wamponoags and English settlers in 1621.  Perhaps it's more like the medieval European "harvest homes" to celebrate and give thanks for the harvest.  I mean, I am Irish/Scottish/English/Welsh, plus German and French, all of whom would have celebrated and given thanks at the harvest.  So maybe instead of doing the usual modern Thanksgiving with turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie or even trying to attempt a resemblance to an authentic meal with furmenty, nasaump, or sobaheg, etc, maybe I should look back to those medieval harvest feasts.  But I'm not sure I want to eat rosee (a chicken with rosewater dish) or cod with jance sauce or the like (though, the custard, "snow," and confits sound good.)  Maybe I'll just focus on our local, seasonal produce . . . which brings me back to our usual modern Thanksgiving!  So maybe this year, I will try new ways to celebrate sweet potatoes, cranberries, kale, brussel sprouts, corn and the like, with recipes that maintain more of the integrity of the produce with less processed additions.