Return to story

The gut-busting joy that is Thanksgiving

November 22, 2009 12:36 am

THANKSGIVING. Come on! Who thought this one up? It's like some holiday dreamed up by stoners over bong hits: Guys (cough, cough), check it out. Some lady mom dude gets up early and starts making a bunch of food, like nine or 10 meals' worth. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, hot rolls, green-bean casserole, that weird red jelly-ish stuff--you know, it keeps the shape of the can?--sweet potatoes with marshmallows melted on them, and pies, tons of pies.

Here's how the day goes down. You have this totally righteous meal, bros, shoveling it in, seconds, thirds, fourths, until you're as stuffed as the turkey. So what happens next, you might wonder? Some kind of lame-o holiday rite like caroling or hunting for colored eggs in a suburban backyard? A little exercise to work off some of those thousands of calories you just inhaled, perchance?

Survey says, think again.

All that's required of you, amigos, is that you drag your now well-upholstered guts straight to the nearest couch--ASAP!--for some well-earned, all-afternoon chillin'. Nonstop football (games are on all day even though it's not even Sunday!) and some totally hilarious black-and-white movies from back in the old days, like the 1980s or something. Hey, go ahead and take a nap, too, if you like.

And it gets better, mes freres. Wrap your brains around this. Remember all that grub you piled in earlier? Well, after a few strenuous hours flat on your back, dozing and watching and dozing, it's time to chow down again! Feedbag Part Deux, my munchies-kins! So back you go to the kitchen for humongous turkey sandwiches, perhaps a scoop or two of mashed potatoes microwaved back into tasty-hood, and why yes, thank you, I will have a spoonful of those s'mores-yams à la High Times. Don't forget to save room for more pie! Enormous wedges of pumpkin, pecan, apple, or mincemeat. And don't go light on the Reddi-Wip either, chow-rades. The lady dude will have stockpiled a couple of cans, guaranteed. Spray yourselves nice, sugary heaps of the stuff, my belly-bursting brothers. Repeat as necessary.

Man, I am so there.

How I love this simplest and most uncomplicated of holidays with its humble and unfussy agenda. No gifts to buy, no tedious decorations to hang/string/nail up/tack on/plug in, no cards to send. It's sort of like an average day--a meal, some TV--but writ large: a table-buckling MEAL!; a channel-surfing MARATHON! It demands so little of anyone (except, of course, the meal preparer, who, in my little self-absorbed corner of existence will always be--as long as she's able to hoist that 20-pound Butterball all by her lonesome into the oven at 4 a.m.--dear, sweet Mom), but gives us so much gut-busting pleasure in return.

GRATITUDE, SUPERSIZED

For better or worse, Thanksgiving is the great, defining, American holiday showcasing two things at which our people excel: overeating and TV-watching. While all cultures have some version of a harvest festival--celebrations acknowledging that the crops are in, the livestock winter-fatted, and that a long, snowbound winter looms ahead--it took our great, enterprising American can-do spirit to appropriately supersize the fun.

Let the finicky and nibbling Europeans enjoy modest holiday repasts at their ungroaning tables, wasting valuable shoveling-it-in time with idle conversation; we goal-oriented Americans have learned to eat with python-like efficiency (our mealtime conversations limited to sentences starting with "Pass the ") so as to get back to more credible pursuits, such as football games or naps.

Speaking of football, how come the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys play every Thanksgiving? Symbolism-wise, wouldn't the Redskins (although Squanto might have found a team name deriving from a Eurocentric observation of American Indian pigmentation problematic) and the Patriots (whose stadium in Foxborough, Mass., is closest to Plymouth Rock) make more sense? Although had the Redskins been chosen to play this year--as they slog through an annus horribilis not endured by Washington sports fans since the days of the bottom-rung-hugging Senators--tryptophan would have had competition as the day's primary narcoleptic.

Avian-named teams probably shouldn't play on Thanksgiving. On a day when nicely browned birds are being carved up all over America, watching Eagles, Falcons, Ravens, Seahawks, or Cardinals flap and stumble about on some muddy field may resonate unpleasantly. Bad mojo. Probably better to stick to four-legged team mascots like Rams, Jaguars, Panthers, and Bengals. Nothing winged or beaked.

What pigskin gems are lined up for this coming Turkey Day? Green Bay should easily send the hapless and roarless Lions--no kings of the NFL jungle they--packing. "America's Team," the Cowboys (I retain the lifelong Redskins fan's right to loathe Dallas) will probably defeat Oakland, although when we snap that wishbone earlier I'll hope otherwise. Later that evening the equally hated (again, I plead the Washington fan defense) New York Giants will hopefully be trampled by the mile-high Broncos. Of course, this final game won't air until almost 8:30, at which time most of us will be snoring away, our chins flecked with Reddi-Wip, in belt-loosened contentment.

Rob Huffman lives in Spotsylvania County.