Thanksgiving is certainly many people’s favorite holiday - and for good reason. The well-cooked turkey (this year I’m having deep-fried turkey for the first time), the delectable sides (including my favorite: sweet potato casserole), family seated around a common table, and football. But the reason we celebrate this holiday is rooted in a biblical concept: the giving of thanks.

Obviously with a name like “Pilgrim”, I grew up with mixed feelings about Thanksgiving. In kindergarten our coloring sheets were the prototypical male and female pilgrims dressed in Puritan attire - and when I wrote my name at the top of the page the teacher got a nice sarcastic chuckle out of my artistic masterpiece.