HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Thanksgiving used to be so easy, so relaxing – my favorite holiday.

But then ‘correctness’ struck, and things got complicated…

And while every holiday is being reexamined, Thanksgiving has been given a real twice-over, beginning with ‘Pilgrim Atrocities’:

The Pilgrims fleeing England to avoid religious persecution, the anguish of cookies referred to as biscuits, and boring nil-nil soccer games, to find welcoming Indians.

Who invited the newcomers for a dinner canoe cruise – but who wants to get back in the boat after a long boat ride? the Pilgrims angry they hadn’t something prepared for dinner.

Unfortunately, the pilgrims were terrible guests: Bogarting the peace pipe, displacing the real ‘Indian actors’ in John Wayne films, and ‘colonizing, brutalizing and raping the locals’ -try recreating that in a school play.

But the locals still willing to aid their acclimation, teaching them to grow corn, adjust to daylight saving time, even sharing their family recipe for celery stuffed with spray cheese.

Again, the Pilgrims behaved poorly: Not allowing the Indians to join their bowling league, forcing them to start their own league on Tuesdays, the least popular night.

The final straw: After giving their sports teams ‘Indian’ names, leaving only nosebleed seats at will call.

The other final straw: Changing their name to ‘Indigenous People’, which no one could pronounce or spell – forcing them to re-monogram their towels.

Yet again their hosts responded graciously, teaching their guests about day drinking, virtually every American’s favorite Thanksgiving tradition, ultimately being rewarded with a string of casinos.

Correctness has even come for turkey prep:

We now refer to the turkey as he/she/they, Tom a vestige of male patriarchy.

I handle turkey prep, washing, drying, and covering they with flavorful spices. And myself, wanting to be “one with they”;

They cavity then packed with stuffing, and slathered in butter – as am I, again to be “one with they”, but also reliving one of my favorite College weekends – the cooking process begins, the best part being that ‘whole house turkey aroma’.

But none of that happens until we’ve attended a Zoom seminar on ‘Respecting Boundaries: Stuffing is a form of sexual terrorism”, and obtaining a written release from the turkey…

Once the turkey is safely in the oven, we renew family traditions such as the Turkey Bowl, which ends when a quorum of the adults have pulled something.

Eventually ‘the group’ is freed from the oven – served at room temperature because we couldn’t use the gas stove or the electric air fryer in order to save the environment -and renounced on Twitter for they sodium content.

We then sit down to dinner: turkey with many of the trimmings – half of the fixin’s rejected as GMO.

But first, the most important Thanksgiving dinner tradition, when each diner responds to “What are you thankful for?”, aka the ‘Gratitude Moment’.

The answers range from: “My family, my friends”, “What they said” to “The chance to spend this time together”.     

After dinner, we head to the family room for our annual ‘food comas’. One year we discovered Uncle Frank in an actual coma, and no one’s allowed to sit in that place on the sofa, ever again.

It was a great day, full of family, traditions, and gratitude.

But I wondered “What if the ‘gratitude moment’ became an ongoing, year-round thing?”

What if we woke up every day, grateful for all we’ve been given, reminding ourselves how lucky we are for our feet to ‘hit the floor’?  

Woke up and remembered each day is a gift from God, and we do Him – and ourselves – honor by making the most of it?

For 197 more posts like this –each with thanks for all we’ve been given– go to beersatthenifty.com. Your phone will display every post, and you can waste an hour or two.

Or send me an email to the site, and I’ll add you to my Sunday distribution.

TO ENHANCE YOUR ENJOYMENT OF THIS POST, PAIR IT WITH THE FOLLOWING SONGS:

Unfortunately, not everyone has fond Thanksgiving family memories (or family in general), and today’s song hints at that. But I remain a Death Cab For Cutie fan, as well as Ben Gibbard’s solo work, so there’s that then. Check out “Plans”, a fun listen.

Styrofoam Plates  Death Cab for Cutie

There’s a saltwater film on the jar of your ashes
I threw them to sea, but a gust blew them backwards
And the sting in my eyes, which you then inflicted
Was par for the course, just as when you were living
It’s no stretch to say you were not quite a father
But a donor of seeds to a poor single mother
That would raise us alone, we never saw the money
That went down your throat through the hole in your belly

Thirteen years old in the suburbs of Denver
Standing in line for Thanksgiving dinner
At the Catholic church, the servers wore crosses
To shield from the sufferance plaguing the others
Styrofoam plates, cafeteria tables
Charity reeks of cheap wine and pity
And I’m thinking of you, I do every year
When we count all our blessings and wonder what we’re doing here

You’re a disgrace to the concept of family
The priest won’t divulge that fact in his homily
And I’ll stand up and scream if the mourning remain quiet
You can deck out a lie in a suit, but I won’t buy it
I won’t join in the procession that’s speaking their piece
Using five-dollar words while praising his integrity
And just ’cause he’s gone, it doesn’t change the fact
He was a bastard in life, thus, a bastard in death, yeah