November 20, 2005
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Thankful to be Free
© The Author, 2005Thanksgiving is boring. Excruciatingly, mind numbingly, irrevocably boring. So boring is this stagnant excuse for a holiday that even seriously dull activities provide more of a thrill than Turkey Day. Callus picking, watching The View, linear equations—even waiting for the doctor in the examination room wearing a scratchy paper gown, with nothing but a gigantic poster of the various stages of melanoma to entertain you gives you more of a kick than the gigantic snore that is Thanksgiving day.
I am the Thanksgiving Grinch.
Even though Turkey Day is the dumbest, most culturally insensitive holiday on the planet, it has always been a point of turmoil for me growing up. Am I spending it with my mom or my dad? No matter what my decision was, it was sure to prompt disappointment and guilt. In adulthood, the dilemma has only worsened: will I eat turkey with my mom, my dad, my ex-step dad, or my in-laws? If we spend Turkey Day with the in-laws, will we dine with Shaun’s mom or Shaun’s dad? In my adulthood, there are so many more people to disappoint, and so many more people to feel guilty for not seeing. The whole thing is far too much effort for such a putrid excuse for a holiday. At least Christmas generally makes the effort worthwhile.
Not only is Thanksgiving boring, but also my childhood memories of it are pretty dismal. When I was really small, and still invited to my step mom’s parents for Thanksgiving, I would resort to building card houses, as there were no kids to play with and no one who knew me well enough to talk to me. After dinner, everyone would nap, and the house would moan and creek weirdly in the quiet.
At my now ex-step dad’s family Thanksgiving, things were loud and Italian and as a girl I would seek refuge from the noise and the newness of the family in the basement. I would spend hours looking at the 70′s era toys left over from the six kids who grew up in that house; a Sesame Street doll house, a Barbie with a thick coat of black paint lining her top eyelid, tattered decks of Uno with half the cards missing. Whenever I went upstairs I was overwhelmed and lost in the noise, ignored in the shuffle. It was better to stay hidden.
I have loose, disjointed memories of my dad’s family Thanksgiving, where my cousin, ripe with eating disorders as far back as elementary school would throw up the mass amounts of butter biscuits that she consumed while I waited in the creepy room outside the bathroom, afraid for what was happening on the other side of the bathroom door and afraid of the room I was in, for we were (are) convinced that it is haunted.
I have few memories of Thanksgiving with my mom’s family, as they moved away when I was still really little. There is a picture of my grandpa carving the turkey while the man who is now my ex-step dad and was then my mom’s boyfriend holds me close to him. I remember that happening: the excitement of the electric carver punctuating the scary thrill of this new dad holding me tight.
In recent years, Shaun and I have decided to skip the whole dreary, dull shebang altogether. We have our own tradition on November 24. In our house, November 24 involves no real cooking. Instead, we pig out with a deli spread and watch movies. We do not associate with family. We do not watch football. In essence, we ignore the holiday all together. It is grand.
This November 24, our plan is to go to see the movie Bee Season (a movie based of the lovely, lovely, perfectly lovely novel by Myla Goldberg) and to dine from the following menu:
• Turkey Sandwiches made with yummy bread from Red Hen Bakery & yummy cheese from the Swedish deli on Clark
• Good olives & pickles from the Mediterranean Grocer on Winamac & Clark
• The Vegetarian Cookbook’s Asparagus and Red Pepper Salad
• Rachel Ray’s Crab Salad in Lettuce Tacos
• Rachel Ray’s Everything Seasoned nuts
• Vegetarian Express’ Banana Chocolate Maple IceThis November 24, my mom is coming from Michigan to join us in our reinvented celebration. At first, I think she was disappointed to hear that we refuse to cook on November 24, but once she is here, I think she will be pleased. She’s introduced a new element to anti-Thanksgiving: a Turkey Trot. So now our newly invented holiday will include participation in an 8K run to raise food and money for Chicago shelters as well.
The 8 k run and my mom are both fantastic additions to the day’s events if I do say so myself.
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What are your plans for November 24?
::Random Tangent::
I hate Christmas shopping for grown ups. It is thoughtless and it makes me feel like a zombie. Homemade gifts mean much more to me to give, but I wonder if people like getting them. Last year, Shaun and I co-wrote a cookbook for our adult family and friends (kids, of course got toys, games, or books, which are fun to shop for) and had it nicely and cost effectively spirally bound. Some loved it, but some expressed lightly veiled disappointment.What are your thoughts on homemade gifts? For or Against?
Comments (12)
Absolutely for. I would always rather get a handmade gift than a bought gift. As kids, we made every single one of our gifts. If I could get away with it, I’d have a movie-thon Thanksgiving, too. I am obligated to go to mom’s, but I’ve always said that as long as you spend the day away from work, with family, it’s a holiday. Because I celebrate Hanukkah and not Christmas, that day is always a day when I see whatever fab “Oscar worthy” movie comes out, and eat chinese food. Just like all my Jewish friends too.
I think your day sounds lovely. Enjoy.
I have to admit, I love Thanksgiving, but my family is very close and there are a lot of us. It’s basically a big party, and after dinner we have 20-30 people over for dessert and various alcoholic concoctions. On the other hand, I always hated Christmas, because the giftgiving doesn’t feel heartfelt; it’s more like an obligation that to consume products that people will forget in a few months and to deplete my already sad bank account. As for homemade gifts – I do enjoy getting them, but creativity in gifting is NOT one of my strongpoints and therefore I do not make them. This year though, Christmas is canceled, and I can’t say how relieved I am. We’ll have some spinach-artichoke dip, shrimp cocktails and maybe a Bloody Mary, and call it good. In the meantime, I am gearing up for fantastic eating next week.
I have to say I like Thanksgiving, but mostly just because it’s a nice way for me to spend the day with my family. I’ve got a painfully functional family, and as I’ve gotten older and we aren’t together very much, it’s nice just to be all together in the house together. That, and I’m more than happy to get a day off from work for any reason. Although, once we had an anti-Thanksgiving dinner where my mom made this wonderful homemade macaroni and cheese and I made a carrot cake. It was delicious and fun.
As for homemade gifts- I love them. Even better, I love homemade food gifts. I think a lot of times if people are giving gifts they’ve made, there’s thought behind them – and that’s always better than some meaningless thing. And, often if someone’s giving a gift of food it’s something the giver is proud of and it almost is always delicious. Best yet, you can eat it and enjoy it, and when it’s gone there’s no clutter left. I would have loved to receive your special cookbook – it’s a special, thoughtful thing.
I’m sorry to hear of your negative associations for Thanksgiving. Almost all of my Thanksgivings have been spent with family, from the ones with our grandparents and/or my mom’s sister’s family to the gatherings at my mother’s house after we had no grandparents left with whom to share the holiday. This, to me, is all about food and family, with the inherent dysfunction and competition mere side dishes to the love and copious amounts of food. It’s my favorite holiday, since it’s all quite uncomplicated and doesn’t ask for much more than showing up and maybe bringing food.
That said, as noted on the blog, it looks like the Thanksgiving gathering will happen on Sunday for the ideal scheduling. So I guess I’m not really doing aything on Thursday. Sleeping in, maybe. I’ll try not to worry about it too much.
ryc: I think many families are different, but we kind of fulfilled specific roles. The oldest brother has been through the marriage thing (twice) and has kids, yet doesn’t necessary serve as a role model of maturity. The youngest brother is the world traveler, always dating marvelous women and having a free lifestyle. I’m just sort of the person who strives for a kind of equilibrium … trying to improve myself while remaining dependable. We all function well this way.
totally for homemade gifts and if they don’t like it, they don’t get anything next year!
but i love the fact that you reinvented the holiday to fit your needs. no one says they need to include certain things to work…. good job! have a great day!
This Thanksgiving I boldly refused to go to the hosting family member’s feasting site (my dad’s brother). It’s in Idaho, I did’t want to spend a third of my precious days off driving, and I cannot stand neither him nor his family. I’m staying home with my sister (who also cannot stand his family…I don’t think anyone can stand him, but they don’t have the luxury of…not caring.) My mom’s mom is coming over and I’m making a turkey for the three of us. We’ll eat, go see a movie, eat more, watch Survivor, and vow to not set a foot in any retail store the following day. I really like cooking. My grandma’s a great cook so I’ve been doing a lot of research and preparation and am excited to impress.
ryc: I LOVE Eva. I got some of the ideas for my name essay from the scene where Eva Luna is named. Eva so she will love life. And Luna because her mother is forced to give her a surname. Even then, it’s not really her father’s name and it’s a very feminine archetype. Love it love it! Eva is in love with the painting of the sea right now and I don’t think I can ever look at a man’s nose the same ever again!
If I had any time for homemade gifts, I’d do them. I think they are nice and I sure like to get them.
However, to the matter at hand. You are the Thanksgiving Grinch and I am the Christmas Grinch. I’ll probably do a rant in a few weeks about why I hate everything about Christmas. (Hint: it all comes down to GREED.) But I rather like Thanksgiving. My memories of it are very wonderful, as we had a close, Swedish immigrant family. My grandmother could cook up a storm and we had a lovely time every year. Then I grew up, people started dying, and now my husband and I celebrate it alone. This year we will have my brother over, who has been horribly sick. So he will appreciate it. The boys will watch football and I’ll read a book. It’s relaxing and nice and I don’t mind stuffing myself to the gills once a year.
RYC: thanks so much for your nice comments on my Equality essay. Those Socrates Café things are hard to do, so your commentary was extremely welcome. And I guess I am an optimist. Odd in a journalist, I know. But I do think we all working toward the common good, rather than a world splintered by racism and sexism.
Lynn
last year i choose a number of photographs and printed them to a small size and placed them in a plain white envelope with nice comments written on the back, and our official autograph. for my immediate family, and a few i’m very close to, i choose to purchase something unique that i knew they would like. it wasn’t about money. it was about that while spending time away from them i still think of them amidst all the business of the winter season. i don’t mind spending any amount of money on a gift, it is simply the paper form of my hard work, which i would gladly give to most freely. that’s what i didn’t understand as a child and have come to appreciate as a young adult.
though… we might steal your thanksgiving routine. holidays even in a small “non-dvorced” & living in the same 5 blocks family, still had us shuffling from one house to the next and then back home to recuperate for a day while the same people we just saw came back to visit us there.
I love Thanksgiving, mainly because the meal is out-of-this-world. This is my first year not going home for this holiday, and I’m sure I’ll miss it a lot. My family is smaller and more contained, and so Thanksgiving is like Christmas without the bullshit of exchanging presents. It’s just a time for us to enjoy each other’s company. I also can understand the stress of feeling pulled in every which direction—with the December holidays looming, I’ll have to figure out how to stretch myself thin enough across the country. It’ll be a challenge.
As for loud and Italian family gatherings, those are the only kind I’ve ever known and I love them. Loud, drunk, and full of appetizers seem to be the standard for my family. All three of those things (noise, alcohol, artichoke dip) help drown out the more obnoxious noise—listening to my stressful mother fret about when to pull out the freaking turkey from the oven.
Homemade gifts: I love them, but I’ve learned that the people in my family don’t exactly appreciate them. It irks me.
Hmm… isn’t Thanksgiving one of those holidays that doesn’t have a set date. Like, it’s Nov 24 this year, but next year it will be Nov 25?
I really am one of those “it’s the thought that counts” people, but that being said, I try to make sure the thought is a good one, reflecting that I know what the recipient likes.
A cookbook for someone who likes to cook, great gift. A cookbook for someone who eats Chipotle four nights a week, well, maybe not such a great gift.
Thanks for the encouraging words. I know I’ll find something eventually, it’s just that this freaking deli job has got me down since it’s the only work I’m doing at the moment. I’m not making enough money AND the job is dreadfully boring, and so I feel like I’m not being particularly successful. If I had a writing gig on top of the deli job, then the deli wouldn’t seem so awful.