Everyday should be Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday…not sure why, maybe it’s because I get a pass on being a pig and being a glutton. I often wondered if such a day only exists in America. Only in America do you have TV channels dedicated to who can eat the most. It’s practically Thanksgiving everyday here. Not necessarily in my home, but in general.
I once had a job working at a restaurant that made donuts; the donut makers would arrive around 1am and make donuts till 6 am by the following evening, the leftover unsold donuts were thrown away. Can you believe that? Donuts less than 24 hours old, practically fresh, were tossed out. Sometimes the excess would fill several 55 gallon garbage cans. The dumpsters had somewhat of a sweet scent, like that of an old peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I really do not like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, especially the way most children traditionally enjoy them, you know with the brim of the sandwich trimmed leaving only fluffy soft white Wonder bread. I’ve always found the texture disgusting, it falls somewhere between a sand which and bubblegum and play dough. It’s the way the sandwich sticks to the roof of my mouth that drives me crazy, and I’m forced to use my tongue to wedge it off. I prefer food with texture, like hearty whole grain crusty bread. And when it comes to ice cream you better believe it better have pieces of something floating around in it. But as for soft PB&J and the way it sticks to my mouth, Yuck, food that requires that much work is just not up my alley.
That’s why I’ll never order crabs. Someone already went through the effort to catch it and cook it and serve it up, I think they should have followed through and shucked it from it’s shell (or whatever you call it) in the least. I think that’s just plain lazy of them to go through all that work, then serve me, a paying patron, an exoskeleton with meat on the inside. I say if you have to go through all that effort, it probably shouldn’t be eaten in the first place, or we should all revert back to the days when eating took that much effort, or be vegetarians.
That’s why I like vegetarians; do you realize how much work it takes to slaughter a cow takes. Cleaning it’s innards and cutting it up into manageable portions and then you still have to cook it…jeez, trust me, there would be fewer vegetarians if peeling a banana was that difficult; but I digress.
Thanksgiving from the way I see it is nothing more than an excuse to indulge and really not be thankful for anything in particular. Think about it, a big meal is almost a right-of-passage. Churches open doors and invite people to come in and feast and homeless shelters serve up massive meals. What does a big meal have to do with being thankful, especially to a person who is homeless? Seriously…if thanksgiving is about a big meal, than we should rename it “upsize my food nigga-foo day”.
Did you know that the average person living in poverty in the US would be considered Upper class in over 80% of the world? Did you also know Thanksgiving is primarily a North American and Canadian Holiday…everywhere else is pretty much Thanksgiving every day.
I was watching one of those travel shows, and people all around the world often get together cook, dance and party it up all the time, for them, it seems that thanksgiving is an attitude. They seemed so thankful to be together…even without modern commodities and in households that may make $50 a month, somehow these people find a way to be thankful. Maybe it’s because they are not defined by what they have, rather they are defined by who they are and who they are around. I once had a neighbor, her name was Jane…it might have been Janet, or maybe something a bit more exotic like Jaimez, though she looked like a plain-jane….Jane. Regardless, my brother and I used climb over our fence and tip-toe through her immaculate yard. Her hedges were always trimmed and the boarder of her yard was always perfectly edged. We would shimmy up her cumquat tree (at least I think it was a cumquat tree) which from my 6 year old perspective seemed like 50 ft, but in actuality was probably more like 6 ft. and we would try to hide in the branches and eat the cumquats. Moments later Jane with her little poodle Twinkle would come out of her front door yelling for us to get off her property and to get out of her tree. She would usually bring a broom and as I would dangle my brother would whisper “SHHH…She Cant see you, don’t say anything” and I would usually be on the lower branch beneath him, wincing in pain because she could in fact see us and the pain was often coming from the broom stick which Jane would be using to jab me in the back; until I couldn’t take it anymore and I would let go of the branch and hit the ground, often narrowly missing twinkle who was in a frothing rage of a barking fit. One time Jane brought out a BB gun and actually shot me…no lie. But it was worth it for the story and for the cumquats. I wonder how many people have stories like that; I bet the amount of childhood misadventures could fill a library bigger than Noah’s ark.
But to those people whose lives are equivalent to a Sally Struthers infomercial, (you know the feed the children in Africa who have bloated bellies and flies for clothes) I wonder what they are so thankful for? Because I’ve seen these place, first hand…on TV and they looked happy…they at least acted happy…maybe the producers only selected the happy families or maybe they were actors…I’m not sure?
Did you know that in Greece they have a philosophy that dates back to ancient times? You see, way, way, waaayyyy back in the day; the Greeks were always at war. So often the men would wake up and not know if that would be their last day alive, and the woman wouldn’t if they would be violently raped by some carousing bandit or if it would be the last day they would wake to see their families or be captured and sent off to be a slave or killed or whatever horrible things vex woman (could you imagine living with that type of paranoia…maybe you can?) So they lived by this principle. “Live each day as if it’s your last and treat your fellow man like it is their last” WOW, what a way to live!!!
That didn’t men they lived in perpetual chaos and without preparing for the future, but it DID mean that they were sure to show love and kindness, and even to this day on some Greek islands you find people still practicing this principle the principle of Thanksgiving. The birds signing, the waves crashing and cold wind on their face (or hot if it’s summer) a simple conversation a warm cup of milk, or coffee or tea…whatever is available to make one thankful, these are the things they gravitate towards…imagine if you only gravitated towards the things that make you happy?
What is thanksgiving? Is it a holiday? I think it’s a way of life! Everyday should be Thanks giving!