Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a bore, isn't it? We don't get much time off. We have no presents to get or give. There's no chocolate involved. Why, there aren't even any special drinks, like eggnog or champagne associated with the holiday! How can this be an American holiday? It's passe. It was invented in a much less cool era, the time of homemakers, gingham, wind-up clocks, and telephone operators. It was officially fixed in our calendar in 1941, after all.

I don't think Thanksgiving is cool enough for our time. We need an alternative Thanksgiving Day. Maybe we should call a truce, where Tea Party people and Occupied people (not those who are occupied, the yearning masses longing to breath free, but the folks who occupy, when they aren't at work) have drinks and talk sports instead of the usual agita. What would we call a day like that? No, not the day hell freezes over. I don't think so. So pessimistic. Could we call it Improbably Optimistic Day? Impossibly Sensible Day?  The drink? It would be beer, no doubt. The food: Nachos. Everyone likes beer and nachos, don't they? Even the Tea Party/Occupy Crew.

Ahh, darn. But then what would we do with all of us who feel that we have something to be thankful for inspite of the quibbling, bickering, back-stabbing, misquoting and idiocy that constitutes our 24/12 news cycle of national obsessions? What about all of us who really are happy we have families and homes and food, fools that we are?

Perhaps we'll keep the darned holiday as it is, turkey, dressing, pie, football and all. We have to hang on to something, don't we?

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