Yes, it’s Thanksgiving again. It’s time to spend time with the family again, overindulge in food, and pray to god it all goes quickly this year without your mother asking why you’re not married yet. (This is a recent development for me, but if you’re Jewish, you’ve probably heard it since you were five.) I love this holiday because it is just the right mixture of commercialism and genuine American patriotism that make it a holiday almost anybody, who doesn’t deeply hate America, can latch onto. It, in my mind, is the perfect American holiday.
What better represents America than overindulgence and overeating?
The actual holiday is, of course, a horrible one. Over the years has been Disinyfied by a morally bankrupt culture that believes that the more “bad” things we sweep under the carpet, the healthier our society will be. Strangely enough, the more historically homogenized we make our country, the more terrible it seems to become. The settlers landed in America hungry and unprepared for the new world, and the Native American population showed us the uses of corn and the abundance of the land. This is why we celebrate Thanksgiving. We seem to have forgotten that after the Native Americans showed us their hospitality, we basically murdered them all or infected them with our European viruses and then stole their land. Classic white boy fun times.
“for some native Americans, Thanksgiving Day is called and treated as ‘Day of Mourning’ because it is a celebration”link
The basic premise of the current holiday, however, is a wonderful one, which despite attempts to over-commercialize it, is still about spending time with loved ones. This sentiment is still refreshing from its roots 509 years ago.
It is a holiday unmarred by religious imagery or politics. Except if your ancestors were Native American, then you can sit in your room and wish terrible things on all of us white-bred, overindulgent Caucasians and our influenza. For the rest of us, let’s eat some turkey, drink some beers, and enjoy the unrealistically constructed version of our families and country.
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2 responses to “Gobble Gobble”
Four, boychick, since age four…
Azoy gich?
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