I haven't really enthusiastically "celebrated" Thanksgiving since college. (10 years). The history behind it and the attendant baggage bother me.
The history of the holiday is only one of many factors that have long made Thanksgiving problematic for me.
As a child there was the thought in my mind {Why are we all getting together like this as a family
today, but not any other day of the year?}
Also, one of my early life traumas—flunking out of kindergarten—happened related to this holiday. My inability to use scissors to cut a turkey hat out of
construction paper was the precipitating incident. Oh the shame of having to have the teacher give me her hat because i couldn’t cut my own! Oh the shame of my father showing up from work in his full business suit, taking me home this final (for me) day!
Back to those family meals. It’s difficult to get inspired about a holiday featuring turkey cooked so dry that it could be used for (or confused with) desiccant, vegetables murdered via overcooking so severely that there should have been at least one criminal investigation, and mashed potatoes bearing a striking resemblance to the white paste i used at school. With no pets to feed under the table nor other means of ready disposal, for my brother and i Thanksgiving became an exercise in how little we could eat before being cleared to go off and play.
I can count on one hand the number of times i’ve enthusiastically celebrated Thanksgiving and have a lot of fingers left over. The outstanding time was the year i bought my van (used)—to this day my first and only motor vehicle. In my 30s, single, living alone, steady job/career & hobby. It was magical taking some time off from work the day prior, to go do some specialty foods shopping.
Very early Thanksgiving Day i drove from my home in the San Francisco Bay Area east across California to Bishop, California, where a few groups from my extended family (each group having few members, as is my family’s way) were scheduled to gather. Made it there whilst the meal was still going: “Surpriiiise! I drove here” (giggle, grin). The return trip the following day as a snowstorm was starting and me without chains, snow tires, or any meaningful winter driving experience in a vehicle i’d only owned for half a year i’ll leave for another time (or never).
Now adjacent holidays for other purposes with chosen friends/families are another matter—vastly superior in general—and separate (long) stories.