I think it'll be good when the riots come, the world blows up and the survivors of the New World will at least be able to enjoy the holiday season by reinventing them all and making it simple.I just had to get that out of my head before the standard U.S. Holidays started.
I'm not one of those people who jumps on the "I hate holidays" bandwagon. No way. I love them. In fact, we need more, as long as we get a day off for them.
It's just an observation, but am I right? Every year, Thanksgiving becomes more of a footnote. More of a teddybear with one eye missing that most people think is cute but could take it or leave it. Isn't that just about right? People who are hardcore consumers are usually big Christmas fans. I know a lot of those people. So I watch them plow right down into the XMAS 2005 Shopping Season quite easily. These are the people who, God forbid, would never consider making a gift for someone out of a wad of clay or a fistfull of beads; they BUY BUY BUY, NOW NOW NOW before you might BUY BUY BUY That Stuff they wanted to BUY BUY BUY BEFORE YOU YOU YOU.
The official "waking of the sleeping holiday giant" really begins in October with a "Trick or treat! Smell my feet! It's Halloween." And then, screeeechkerPOW, it's Christmas frag all over the place. My favorite thing about a 21st century Thanksgiving is that people just blow right past it. And I think that is beautiful. But then again, I laugh at the most inappropriate times. Nerves.
"Screw Thanksgivin'!," the over-priviledged middle-class yeehaw screams, "Madision and Addison! Finish them fun-sized Snicker bars and help me throw fairy lights 'round the front yard...hey, Nadine! Where's my blow-up Santa??"
For me, the fun starts with which retailer will have the mixed nuts to play the first whiff of Christmas? Who will play that ambient, canned Holiday musak shortly after Halloween but not quite Thanksgiving, to lull you into the howling-mad buying spree snowballing right over you and those sad Pilgrims and their measely Giving of Thanks with those locals with the beads and teepees and something like that, with corn and pumpkins and all that gravy, until you get to that day where there was some kid in the manger with the hippie couple, yada yada, sheep and kings, whatever...
Hell. I don't think people choose not to celebrate the simple blessings of having small things and sharing them with each other, if that's what Thanksgiving is really all about. Do I look like I know? Alls I know about Thanksgiving is that there's a big parade in New York, and turkey wings are overrated. And I'm thankful I never have to be around my Aunt Martha Ann and her perverted second husband, Russell. The end.
No, I think The Big C (a.k.a. Christmas and its mighty SUV-sized V-12 mean-machine consumerism) just blows a 21st century Thankgiving right out of its pipes before it knows what hit it.
I stay confused and at odds with myself.
Ron and I went to buy a turkey the other day. And my eyes glazed over and froze as I stood motionless with indecision hunched over into the grocery store freezer, bowling frozen-solid turkeys around over and behind each other, and I asked myself "Why am I even doing this? I don't want to cook this damn thing. It'll take $70 worth of gas to even cook the thing. Something small would be nice. Why am I doing this?"
So I looked for tiny turkeys, and I guess they don't make that model because I didn't see one. Then I considered torfurkey, and then my third eye saw Ron turning pink and rolling his eyes at my suggestion, and then I snapped outta that notion. And then I realized, as I hoisted a child-sized frozen headless and footless fowl into my cart that the only reason I was even considering doing this at all was because I was superstitious. No, really. As if I didn't cook and eat a turkey as I have done every year of my conscious life, then I would have Bad Luck or something. If anything, I should try to Not Eat a turkey and see how Lady Luck deals my hand for 2006. So after wheeling this bird up and down a few aisles with me, I rolled it over to the pork section for one last independent thought. Then accidentally glacing over at the 4-pack of fresh-cut pigs feet, I felt a grip tightening around my throat. "Is it demand that created supply, or supply that created demand?"
I suppose I had That (Grayish) Look on my face, so Ron turned pink and rolled his eyes at me as usual, grabbed the turkeyus maxiumus and spun around, then walked it back to its subzero crypt and tossed it back, airborne, into and amongst its brethren. "We'll just have pizza!" His answer to everything.
We're having a small turkey tenderloin. I'm superstitious, raised in the religion "Consumer".
But I am not complaining. Oh nooo. I'm not the type that will complain about a holiday. I am just looking and typing. Not me, boy. I would never look a gift turkey in the beak. As long as we, the barely middle-class working class, get a day or two off to see what it's like to be a fat jolly housewife, lolly-gagging and lounging and napping and eating bon-bons, just for two days, then that is a-ok with me until I win the lottery.
Anyway, what is my point? I have no idea. Maybe that's beautiful. Enjoy the day, wherever you are and whatever you do or don't do. That's probably something you should do everyday anyway. There. That's the only little nugget of zen I can chisel that complex sociological lump of consumerism coal into. And for the road, here is a little bun of senseless happiness for you -- whether you skip the holidays altogether or get all into like a bag of buttered biscuits.
(Thanks for the link, W!)
Dancin' Doughboy 
