Category: There’s just something about stuffing our faces until our pants burst, then falling asleep on the couch while watching football that just screams ‘America’ (for better or worse). Certainly, Americans weren’t the first to celebrate the harvest, nor did we invent the idea of gorging yourself on the fruits of your labor. But there’s something so ‘American‘ about the holiday of Thanksgiving (yes, I know there is also Canadian Thanksgiving), that it’s a bit comical when you think about it.
Forget about just having a nice meal with your family. It’s got to be a nice, LARGE meal with your family. You had a 12 lb Turkey? My family had a 20 lb Turducken…with a honey-glazed, spiral-sliced ham chaser. Mashed potatoes and corn…no sweet potatoes? That’s it? Were you eating alone? You had a pumpkin and an apple pie? We had that, plus a pecan pie covered with brownies.
You get the idea.
The great irony is, the story of Thanksgiving probably isn’t even true, at least in the storybook form told to children. There were already settlers in Virginia by the time of the “first” Thanksgiving in Plymouth, and it would take another 60 years or so before the United States was founded and George Washington declared the first national holiday. In between, who knows how regular the celebration was. And since then…well, we (as a nation) haven’t really been so friendly to the (Native American) “Indians”. Or each other.
Recent Comments