Nation: A Holiday of Hope

With guarded optimism, the U.S. looks forward on Thanksgiving

It was, as always, a special holiday, with a mood all its own. It had its traditional parades, fiestas on main streets that make children glad adults never grow up; its football classics, often unclassically played; its Butterballs, a word sometimes as aptly applied to the stuffed consumers as it is to the birds. But there were few elaborate dress-up parties and no bulging racks of greeting cards; the occasional pasteboard turkeys that appeared in stores got lost amid the Christmas lights that began winking as soon as the Halloween decorations came down. Its very lack of glitter, as Americans discovered anew last week, makes Thanksgiving the essence of what a holiday was originally supposed to be: a day primarily for family, for reunion, even for the offering of thanks.

The day was, as well, a time both for reflection and for looking ahead. Thanksgiving is a kind of pause between seasons ("a little this side of the snow and that side of the haze," wrote Poet Emily Dickinson). This year the holiday also marked a political pause. A defeated Administration was tidying up loose ends before vanishing into history; a new Government was organizing itself to take over. The nation seemed to be looking forward, not with exuberance, but with a more realistic mood that mingled relief and hope. There was relief that the strident echoes of a divisive and interminable campaign had at last died away, and, like it or not, the nation had made a clear choice. And there was hope that a new President following a new vision could make a start toward building a more confident America.

Like many of the citizens he will lead for the next four years, Ronald Reagan prepared for the months to come by secluding himself with his family. Leaving Los Angeles in a green Marine Corps Huey helicopter for three days at his 688-acre ranch in the Santa Ynez Mountains, he was asked if he would be making his final Cabinet decisions. "Oh no," the President-elect replied, "I think I'll be doing work on the brush and the woodpile." And so he did: chopping wood with a heavy double-edged ax and riding horseback every day with his wife Nancy.

On Thanksgiving, Daughters Patty and Maureen, Maureen's fiance Dennis Revell, Brother Neil, 71, a retired advertising executive, and Neil's wife Bess came to the ranch for a turkey dinner. The weather was sparkling and the ocean view stunning from vantage points along the hills. Said Reagan: "It's very easy to talk about Thanksgiving when surrounded by this type of beauty. I'm thankful, very grateful. Maybe some time in the day everyone will find time to appreciate what we have in this country."

Jimmy Carter also boarded a Marine Corps Huey, but on the lawn of the White House. He too took off for a mountain-top retreat, and for his last Thanksgiving as President. Rosalynn, Amy, Jeff and his wife Annette, and Annette's parents, Mr. and Mrs. G.C. Davis Jr., joined the President at Camp David. He had taken along his cross-country skis in case there was snow, but he was disappointed. He made a few phone calls, one to his mother, still recuperating in Georgia from a broken hip, and another to Connecticut Governor Ella Grasso, who was in a Hartford hospital undergoing chemotherapy for cancer of the liver.