Thanksgiving Recap

Now that I've finally finished digesting Thanksgiving dinner, I've had a chance to reflect on how much different it is to celebrate this holiday far away from the people I shared it with as a child.

The primary difference is the vacant spot at the table which, throughout my young life, would be occupied by The Beast and her ceaseless demands that I conform to her Puritanical social norms by not rubbing mashed potatoes in Jake's face, or telling my younger cousins that the dark meat came from puppies.

These constant demands were occasionally outsourced to Hal. I believe Hal would have played a much larger role in limiting the number of obscene references I made about the cranberry sauce, but he was always (and let me emphasize, always) arguing in favor of democracy and capitalism with my neo-communist aunts and cousins.

During the past several Thansgivings spent on the east coast, there have been no such restraints on my behavior, although my wife does not see the humor (nor the history) in my attempts to rub finely ground tubers in the face of the smallest person at the table.

Also missing from this year's festivies was the presence of remarkably intoxicated relatives.

I'm not sure how this tradition began, but, year after year, I have watched with no small degree of enthusiasm as my uncles (and, as we all got older, most of my cousins) began to stagger across the relatively short expanse between the couch and the baked goods strewn about the kitchen.

Once upon a time I could summarize, quite affectionately, this display of alcohol enthusiasm by saying, "Well, it was a fun get together, My Two Drunk Uncles (or MTDU, for short) were in top form again this year."

But now that everyone is older, the amusement goes far beyond MTDU and includes several cousins, spouses of cousins, boyfriends of cousins and, if anyone owned animals, there'd probably be a small dog that couldn't walk straight.

Also missing from this year's celebration (and by "missing," I mean missing from everyone but me) was a wholesale gorging of food that would have made a Roman emperor nauseus.

There are some people that eat too much when they are stressed, or maybe because they are terribly depressed, but not us. At the outset of each holiday, my family consumes an unspeakably ridiculous amount of food for no apparent reason at all. My best guess is that we feel that by doing this we somehow compensate for the starving Pilgrims of yore.

When all has been said and done, how successful and/or pleasant has a Thanksgiving celebration really been? That question can be answered by determing if a question like this is possible on Friday:

Person: How was your Thanksgiving?

Me: Oh man, I ate so much, I thought I was going to die. Like, I
seriously felt like my stomach was going to rupture and I was going to fall into
neurogenic shock.

Person: Wow that sounds awf...

Me: Awesome. So, so awesome.