Kids' Table? Green Bean Casserole? Men in Tight Pants? NO THANKS

When Kayleigh put out the all-call for guest-bloggers, I jumped at the chance. My own readers can really only take so much of me.

Most days, I'm slummin' it at Your Ill-fitting Overcoat, but today I'm kicking my feet up on the posh, solid-gold-trimmed throw pillows of No Guts, No Glory. Thanks for inviting me over, Kayleigh, and sorry that I forgot to take off my shoes.

xo
Laurie

==

I have a confession to make...


I don't really like Thanksgiving.

I know, I know. I already told you that I hate Halloween, and I've got posts bashing St. Patrick's Day, Columbus Day, Valentine's Day, and New Year's Eve already in the pike. Ebenezer Grinch, at your service.

I actually found a few sympathizers over the Halloween issue, but I suspect I'll have a harder time getting an 'amen' on this one. For most of us, Thanksgiving is a day off from work, a chance to stuff our faces, and there's even a parade involved. What's not to like?

Allow me to explain.

• Thanksgiving means togetherness.
  
  And, in my family, togetherness means yelling.
  
  Half of my relatives are bleeding-heart, tree-hugging, commie-pinko democrats and the other half are bible-thumping, oil-drilling, right-winging republicans who, on the political spectrum, fall somewhere between Rush Limbaugh and Alex P. Keaton.
  
  The battles are bloody ones and no one escapes unscathed.
  


• Thanksgiving means food.
  
  I was a vegetarian for seven years, so Thanksgiving has long been a yearly exercise in piling my plate with dinner rolls and canned cranberry, and praying no one noticed.
  
  I grew up in the South, y'all. And the South? Doesn't really "do" vegetables.
  
  Potato salad? Has bacon. Green bean casserole? Has bacon. Seven-layer salad? HAS BACON. Even the dessert-- a delectable marshmallow dish my grandmother appetizingly refers to as "Fruit Mush"-- is composed almost exclusively of gelatin, which is derived from horse bones and was thus off the menu.
  
  
  I'm an omnivore now, but far too many of my formative Thanksgiving years were spent pushing pads of butter around a plate and being lectured on nutritional health by people who think "Bacon Bits" is a food group.
  


• Thanksgiving means football.
  
  And football means more yelling. It means loud shouting, long-standing rivalries, and men in tight pants doing things with each other that I don't understand and can't participate in. If I wanted to watch that, I'd go back to theater school.
  


• Thanksgiving means being thankful.
  
  I am all about thankfulness.
  
  I am all about thankfulness, but I'd argue that it's hard to be thankful when you're running around like a butterball turkey with its head cut off, dirtying every pan in the house, and willing your oven to spontaneously reproduce.
  
  Holidays = stress. And stress, for me, is not conducive to contemplative gratitude.
  


• Thanksgiving means dining at the Kids' Table.
  
  I am twenty-six-years-old. I've moved across the country twice by myself, I've attended three institutions of higher education, and I've recently learned how to do my own laundry. Two of my cousins are married, one is pregnant, and another is wanted in at least four states for tax evasion.
  
  And yet, every Thanksgiving, we all cram around a card table and eat mac and cheese with plastic forks, relegated to chairs intended for someone sporting one-third of our body mass. And why do we do it? Because we are told to.
  
  
  Side benefit: reduced proximity to the political "discussions" at the grown-up table.
  


• Thanksgiving means honoring the first inhabitants of this great nation.
  
  Honoring them, that is, by pillaging their land, eating their cornbread, and then watching football teams we've named after them, while crafting holiday headdresses out of construction paper, safety scissors, and a misguided fetishization of the exoticized Other.
  
  Am I getting too deep here?
  


• Thanksgiving means travel.
  
  Whether it's a four-county station wagon caravan with three kids, a cooler of cheese sticks, and a lifetime supply of pool noodles...
  
  ... or an urban singleton in coach, sandwiched between a snoring grandpa and a shrieking infant, armed with only a cup of instant coffee and a dog-eared issue of Sky Mall...
  
  I think we can all agree on one thing:
  
  Traveling kind of blows.
  
  Joking aside, I don't actually hate Thanksgiving.
  
  The truth is that I relish any opportunity to spend time with my family, skip out of work, and escape the snow for a few days. I'm thankful for so many things in my life-- my family and pumpkin pie being two of them-- and although I'm thankful for those things every day, it's nice to have that yearly reminder.
  
  I also really, really like mashed potatoes.
  
  But if I'm going to travel across this great land, spend extended time with my family, prepare an elaborate meal in the kitchen, and count my many, many blessings... I prefer to do it on a day when liquor stores are open.
  
  
  photos courtesy larimdame, suzyhomemaker, szczur
  

[Laurie- thank you so much for sharing this hilarious little gem. I owe you! Everyone, if you do not read Laurie's blog, go over there and do it now. There's never any time like the present! She is witty, funny, an amazing writer, and always shares the best pictures.

I hope everyone reading this has a wonderful and gluttonous Thanksgiving, even if you are banished to the kids' table, and stuck between two feuding relatives on the couch. If anyone needs me, I'll be curled up in a ball on my aunt and uncle's leather recliner, clutching my stomach and moaning as I watch the never-ending annual Thanksgiving marathon of the most amazing movies ever.

xo,

Kayleigh]