The Case For Thanksgiving

I’m not a big fan of the holiday you call Candyfest. There are several reasons why I dislike it; The holiday has been plasticated, it makes my glucometer read riot, emotionally disturbed children can’t do schoolwork for weeks because they are perseverating on scary images, and, most importantly, its expansion threatens the greatest holiday on the calendar: Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving has been fighting off annexation by Christmas since World War II. The new pressure from Halloween may bring down the walls. If you walked into a Bed, Bath & Beyond today, three days out from the holiday itself, you would probably find a small table devoted to Thanksgiving, covered, perhaps, in multi-colored leaf wreaths, brown candles, and a vomiting cornucopia, and my bet is that the items on that table would have already been marked down by 15%.

Retailers don’t care about Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving doesn’t sell. It has a magical resistance to monetization. The folks with inventory won’t ever champion Thanksgiving, so it’s up to us to protect and promote this, our greatest of American holidays.

The “Meaning” of Thanksgiving

The beauty of Thanksgiving is that it really has no meaning, and the iconography associated with it is perfectly absurd. If you grew up in the Northeast you may have been taught about the Pilgrims. Perhaps a teacher dressed you up in some facsimile of the Puritans’ plain garb. There is no better argument for the lack of interest in the “meaning” of Thanksgiving than the fact that you can dress children as religious zealots without provoking a community conflagration. Imagine, for a minute, that at this time of year children were asked to cut frock coats, yarmulkes, and pais out of construction paper and put on a play where Orthodox Jews ate a meal with Indians. The Starbucks coffee cup Pharisees would lose their collective mind. Dress children in the clothing of those who believed in predestination, however, and nobody seems to care. That’s because everyone knows that the Thanksgiving story is, well, not at all important.

If you live in parts of the country that were settled by the Spanish, French or the Church of England you already know how peripheral the Pilgrim story is. How can the foundational myth of an American holiday omit black people? Black people had been in America for 100 years when the Pilgrims landed. What about people in the Southwest sitting on land grants from the King of Spain? Mayflower? Who gives a rat’s ass about the Mayflower? Try the San Cristobal.

I’ll take Pilgrim Thanksgiving seriously if you let me whip a Quaker through the streets, hang a witch, and celebrate my godliness by singing a church hymn without musical accompaniment, otherwise the meaning of Thanksgiving, as far as I can determine, is this: “You eat a big meal”.

The Meal

Eating a big meal is the best part of any holiday. Thanksgiving just cuts away all the other nonsense. You don’t have to sing and say a bunch of prayers. The youngest person at the table doesn’t have to get up and open the door for the ghost of the Pilgrims. You just eat. Everyone can eat a big meal. You don’t have to eat turkey. You just have to eat a lot of whatever it is you choose to eat; a lot of rice and beans, a lot of saag paneer, or a lot of pork buns. How much? Enough to make you feel sick. If you are a very skinny person that might not be a large amount of food. If you are me then it takes a couple of pies… but everyone gets there eventually. If you don’t want to cook you can go to a restaurant. Just eat yourself sick in a restaurant and you’ve fulfilled the ceremonial obligations of Thanksgiving.

The Meaning of Family

Another nice thing about Thanksgiving is that you don’t have to celebrate it with your family. I’ve had Thanksgiving dinner with people I barely knew and it was fine. I don’t need to know you to eat myself sick… just please pass the stuffing, whatever-your-name-is, and… “thank you.” The lack of emphasis on family also means that you don’t have to suffer a bunch of histrionics if you blow off your loved ones. Even close knit, over-protective families can usually handle the news that one of their members isn’t going to make it back to the homestead. Nobody’s mom is going to break down in tears because “Billy won’t come home and eat turkey.” The relaxed attitude towards participants often makes people more generous about inviting non-family members to dinner. You might even ask a co-worker, “do you have a place to go for Thanksgiving?” A co-worker. Someone you work with. Imagine that.

The Parade and Football

I’m against Thanksgiving day parades because I’m generally against parades, but I really hate Thanksgiving parades. There are two problems. The first is that in the South Santa Clause usually rides a fire engine and throws candy at kids at the Thanksgiving Day parade. If that isn’t holiday Anschluss I don’t know what is. Santa throwing candy? Why don’t we just have a pair of skeletons, some cops, and the Easter bunny join him? The other problem is that in order to fill the time in between marching bands and big balloons floating down the street, the local news casters say things like, “can’t you just feel the Thanksgiving spirit?” Spirit? What is “Thanksgiving spirit”? Unless you’re saying “that’s the spirit” to the guy on his fourth piece of pumpkin pie, there is no “spirit” of Thanksgiving. The spirit of Thanksgiving past is half a pack of Tums and some discarded cranberry sauce. Spirit? Thanksgiving don’t need no stinking spirit.

As for football, I’m in favor of watching gridiron football on Thanksgiving. Once you’ve eaten a huge meal there are few things more decadent than flopping on the couch and watching other people exercise.

Thanksgiving Might Suck if You Have to Cook

For those that want to complain about cooking, my feeling is that you have done this to yourself. Thanksgiving is made for pot luck. You tell these people to bring mashed potatoes, those folks to bring pies, and your lame-ass brother to bring scotch. Not wine, you have wine, he should bring scotch… and even if you think scotch snobbery is silly it’s ok to say “a bottle of Glen Grant,” so that he doesn’t show up with a bottle of Old Crow. The only thing I can see you getting saddled with is cooking a turkey and, let’s face it, cooking a turkey is no big deal. Defrosting a turkey? That’s a big deal. Have you started defrosting your turkey yet? NO? BETTER START MAKING RESERVATIONS.

What About the Fourth of July?

Some of you will ask, what is so great about Thanksgiving? Isn’t the Fourth of July another day where you just eat a big meal? Let me mock this assertion by repeating it two or three times. “Isn’t the Fourth of July another day where you just eat a big meal?”, “Isn’t the Fourth of July another day where you just eat a big meal?” No, the Fourth of July is a jingoistic holiday where you eat lips and assholes and urinate in public. If you like the Fourth of July a lot it is probably because you have a summer house. If you are stuck in the Bronx for the Fourth of July you realize the following:

a. “cooking out” on the fire escape is better in theory than in practice

b. Fireworks make a lot more noise when detonated in the vicinity of tall buildings

c. there are people in this world dumb enough to shoot guns in the air as a way of “celebrating”.

Thanksgiving can be celebrated by rich and poor, by Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu, by all ethnic groups, and by those with or without family. It is the greatest American holiday because all Americans can celebrate it. Halloween is now the domain of Herseys and Rite Aid. Christmas needs to go on a diet. The way you defend Thanksgiving is by doing your digestive duty. It needs nothing more than that.

So please plan to eat yourself sick on the 24th and I, for one, will thank you.