When Zoeyjane asked for guest posters, I jumped at the chance to voice my own moodiness. Some of you may or may not know me better as Hockeyman. I am a Dad blogger of sorts, although much of my blog gets wrapped up in various ramblings about music and other random shit. Upon learning I would have my guest post published on the American Thanksgiving, I was even more excited to write a guest post. Thanks ZJ, this is officially breaking my cherry in terms of guest posting.
Let me also start by saying, in general, I despise holidays unless they are the anniversary of something profound like Independence Day or some excuse to get really wasted just cause you’re Irish, like St. Patrick’s Day.
Today is the American version of Thanksgiving. It is another holiday on our calendar that I will never fully understand. I understand it is rooted in the history of the Fall harvest and various other legends about pilgrims and Native Americans and whatever spin the religion of the day puts on it. Let’s face it though, it’s really nothing more than excuse as an American to fatten up on some turkey dinner and watch some football on TV.
Only somehow we all decided not to eat dinner at a normal dinner time. We instead choose to eat around 3-ish depending on the kitchen squabbles. Also, we make an insane amount of side dishes to go with one of the blandest and driest meats you can prepare. Baked turkey is hardly ever juicy so we smother it with all other kinds of fattening shit to swallow it down. Also, I hope the cooking is good because it will be your meal for the next 5-6 days before you get a couple weeks off only to have the same meal all over again at Christmas, if you celebrate it.
*Side note: fried turkey injected with cajun spices is juicy and delicious and should be the only way we ever prepare the meat again. IMHO.
Probably the most confusing part about eating turkey in the middle of the afternoon is the tryptophan in i – a natural drug found in turkey that makes you sleep. As if stuffing yourself full of carbs wouldn’t do it already. I guess you could make some fun drinking games from who falls asleep first and what not, but are you really going to shave your grandfathers eyebrows? I don’t think so.
Instead you’ll get forced to watch some NFL football. Why? Because there is NOTHING ELSE ON. Seriously, flip around, what else is there aside from the beginning of all the Christmas movies that will be forced down our throats for the next month. YUCK!
The other Thanksgiving tradition is the Macy’s parade in New York. I have never been to the parade as it was always too cold or my parents didn’t want to get there as early as you’d have to just for a decent spot. The parade as a kid though was much better than as an adult. Big giant cartoon character balloons, school bands, and all the lip syncing you can handle. No one performs anymore. It’s embarrassing looking if you ask me.
But the absolute worst part? The people or “news people” doing the “play by play” of what you’re looking at. The mindless banter of these idiots seriously makes me want to stab my ears. Needless to say, I do not watch this crap any more. How is it we wrap up a Thanksgiving Day parade? Well, with Santa of course. Even though all the stores are closed, we must remind ourselves that it is now the season for insane amounts of spending all the money we really don’t have for one day of gift giving. But that’s another story…
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I guess we are supposed to take a time out to give thanks for all things in our life we are thankful for. My problem with this is we spend the rest of our year not focusing on such things. It’s good to have an excuse I guess, but c’mon, maybe we can reverse psychology this bad boy and celebrate festivus. A day of pointing out disappointments may lead to a year full of truly thankful behavior. I don’t know, worth a thought.
However, I am thankful for all the usual easy ones out there, family, friends, children, yadda yadda yadda. I am also thankful to not be dead as being dead seems like it may be a tad boring. I am also thankful this is one of those holidays that doesn’t have an array of country music stars singing turkey songs. There aren’t any songs for this holiday. I wonder why? I am also thankful there is no gift giving tradition associated with this holiday, or cards. Although retailers have dubbed the day after black Friday, they got nothing for stuff yourself silly Thursday.
The worst part about Thanksgiving though is pretty simple to me. Christmas season has officially started….humbug.
