During the holiday season, many New Yorkers feel left out of the Norman Rockwell vision of Thanksgiving. Even those with big wholesome families back in the Heartland can feel like the black sheep in a Blue State who doesn’t belong anymore. Holiday traditions seem to belong to the small towns we were so desperate to escape.

But if you think about it, the Pilgrims were a lot like us New Yorkers. . .

For starters, they always wore black. They thought they were better than everyone else. And contrary to public opinion, the Pilgrims were probably as deviant as anything in the Village Halloween parade. C’mon, they thought AMSTERDAM was too conservative. We’re talking about folks who liked to put each other in the stocks, administer public whippings, and address the women in their group as “Mistress.” Tell me they wouldn’t fit right in at certain downtown clubs.

But what really makes New York the ideal Thanksgiving town is the tradition of breaking bread with someone from a different culture. We do that every day here, without even thinking about it. So, before you feel bad about yourself for not living in an idealized holiday greeting-card world, look carefully at Norman Rockwell’s iconic painting of Thanksgiving. No one in that entire wholesome family seems to have thought of inviting the neighbors.

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