But surely, you must be thinking, eating turkey cannot be a great 'value'. You're right; it's not. But maintaining close ties with family and friends is, and Thanksgiving traditions (i.e. eating turkey with family) emphasize the importance of this value. By combining abstract human virtues with concrete practices, values persist through time and are shared forever. It is thus easy to see why tradition is important in maintaining values. On 'regular' days, such values are often forgotten, and as human beings, we need that special day and its special traditions to remind us of those values. After all, we need some excuse to practice them.
So, okay. Traditions help instill important values in us, but do they always have positive effects? The answer is no. Traditions themselves are healthy and important in preserving culture, as discussed above. People's reactions to traditions however, are not always healthy and positive. If someone forgot the turkey, or if someone could not attend the big dinner, entire days are sometimes ruined, and people's festive moods are destroyed. When such pessimistic feelings emerge, the meaning of Thanksgiving is lost. The values embedded in the tradition are worthless, because all that matters is the perfection of the day's plan. Such attitudes are dangerous, and they erase any value one may receive from the rest of the day. In fact, by carrying on and coping with seemingly awful situations, one begins to understand the crucial human values on a deeper and more personal level.
Thanksgiving (as well as other holidays and festivals) are important in preserving old-fashioned, but still completely relevant and important, values in the crazy, busy world we live in today. There is nothing wrong with preserving a meaningful tradition, and one should try to integrate these values learned in their everyday lifestyle.
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