Finding joy in a bleak Thanksgiving

updated 5:07 p.m. ET Nov. 26, 2008

A Thanksgiving ago, many of us were fretting over delays at the airport, our holiday season shopping lists, even things like whether to get another Botox injection or a new set of wheels.

Now we worry about keeping gas in the car. Or just keeping the car.

This Thanksgiving, a slumping economy is making many Americans more fearful than thankful.

And yet, as grim as these days are, millions of Americans are still preparing to turn a meal into a celebration — to find joy in the midst of growing hardship.

You could see glimmers of it everywhere — from the suburbs north of Los Angeles, where families who once lived in new homes lined up for free food, to Denver, where dozens down on their luck answered an Internet ad for Thanksgiving dinner, to a church on Wall Street, where a clergyman repeatedly struggled to answer the question of the moment: Will the hard times ever end?

* * *

Thanks to Craigslist
At turkey time last year, Monique White was unemployed, living in a cramped motel room and pining for the Thanksgivings of her childhood, when dozens of people would gather for a holiday feast.

Today a receptionist at a dentist's office, she has a townhouse in Littleton, Colo. And, thanks to an Internet posting, a list of Thanksgiving dinner guests — strangers all — who will help her eat nine turkeys, four hams, 16 boxes of stuffing and a dozen or so pies.

How did this happen?

Jack Dempsey / AP Monique White placed an ad on Craigslist inviting people to come to her home for dinner.

White, 36, was feeling a bit lonesome a week ago; her two sons were planning to spend the holiday with their father. And though her longtime partner, Doug White, would be there for her on Thanksgiving, she longed to be surrounded by many more people.

So she posted invitations on Craigslist, the Internet classifieds site. In part, one read:

"Maybe you are someone who is new in town and doesn't have anywhere to go. Maybe you are a small family that wouldn't be able to afford Thanksgiving dinner otherwise. Maybe you are just looking to change up your normal Thanksgiving tradition. ... We have room at our table this year."

She figured four folks, maybe five would answer. But then the replies poured in: People laid off from work. People with no family. People ashamed to bring their children to a Thanksgiving dinner at a soup kitchen.

"I thought: There's was no way I can judge who is worthy of sitting at my table. I have to invite them all," White says.

In all, 32 people are expected for dinner.

When White's boss heard what she was doing, he offered to pay for the food. Then a local hotel offered to provide tables and chairs. Then a professional magician said he would like to perform for the kids.

Certainly a far cry from Thanksgiving 2007, White says. "Last year it was just us two. It was horrible."

Doug White has been busy baking turkeys, putting one in the oven as soon as another comes out.

"People need to stop being so worried about me, me, me, my bills, my life," he says. "You stop worrying, and look what happens?"

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