A Biden Thanksgiving: Sweeping Views of Nantucket Harbor, Calls About Israel

“I think he needs to do everything he can for the Palestinian people,” Mr. Butterworth said. But, he added: “I’m a fan of Joe Biden, so I don’t mind him coming. I think he’s doing as well as he can with all the resistance he has from Congress and all that.”

The Bidens have been visiting Nantucket since 1975, when Mr. Biden, then a first-term senator from Delaware, and Jill, his wife-to-be, spent their first Thanksgiving together there. In his memoir “Promise Me, Dad,” Mr. Biden called it an “act of diplomacy.” The family was fielding multiple invitations and he worried any choice would offend another invitee.

“Nantucket turned out to be worth it once we finally got there, eight hours after we left our house in Wilmington,” the president wrote of that trip by car from his home in Delaware to the ferry in Hyannis, Mass., that crosses to Nantucket.

“It was chilly on the little island at the end of November, but you could smell the tangy salt air of the Atlantic. The island had emptied for the season, so we had much of the place to ourselves,” he recalled.

“Nantucket Thanksgiving became our tradition for the next four decades,” Dr. Biden wrote in her memoir “Where the Light Enters.” “With a few exceptions, we’ve made the trek every year since, creating rituals that would become a key part of our family along the way.”

Over the years, Mr. Biden has taken part in the Christmas-tree-lighting ceremony and once participated in the Thanksgiving Day Cold Turkey Plunge, a dip into frigid waters to benefit the Weezie Library for Children on the island.

These days Thanksgiving on Nantucket is a large family affair. Last year the Bidens were joined by their daughter, Ashley, and Mr. Biden’s son Hunter, his wife, Melissa, and their young son, Beau. This year the family will be joined by Ashley and her husband, Howard Krein; Hunter, Melissa and Beau; and other grandchildren, Naomi, Finnegan, Maisy and Hunter, the White House said.