Thanksgiving

You know all those holiday movies where every imaginable catastrophe and then some happens to the main character(s) and you think the entire holiday is ruined, but then at the very end something wonderful happens and we learn a great message about family and togetherness and perseverance and all that other sentimental garbage? Well, the last part is probably not going to happen, so I'm just going to write a Thanksgiving-related post now. This day is awful.

I used to love Thanksgiving. It was in my duo of favorite holidays along with Halloween. I hate Christmas, and any holiday that falls on a Sunday (i.e. Easter) was never my friend. But Thanksgiving was great. It was never riddled with rampant commercialism (leave that to the day after)--it was all about the food--and I love the food. Thanksgiving is the day for any non-professional gourmet to pull out all the stops and deliver a feast full of carbo-deliciousness. Along with Thanksgiving comes Thanksgiving break, traditionally a time when all the people with money or closeby relatives who care about them leave their student apartments and leave me to a long weekend of solitary, all-by-myself alone-time. Finally, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is always on NBC, hosted by Matt Lauer, Al Roker, and whichever female co-anchor they've got at the time. Giant balloons, lip-synched pop songs, Broadway performances, and commercials for Ocean Spray and the Touch, the Feel, of Cotton. It's been a tradition of mine to watch this parade while eating breakfast since I was about ten years old. So where did it all go wrong?

Let's start with the alone time. For the first time, since leaving for college, my apartment is filled with more people than who normally live here. This leaves me stuck in my bedroom most of the day and I can't even really leave to go to the bathroom because, call me shy, but I can't pee when I can hear my roommates' in-laws talking in the next room. Anyhow, an extended family has commandeered my holiday. At least I don't have to leave the house to be the outsider at someone else's family dinner, and plus, guess who won't be too busy having "family time" to do all of the cleanup?

That brings me to my next point. The cornucopia of guests has altered the sleeping arrangements, causing some people to sleep in the TV room until well past parade time. This is the first Macy's Parade I've missed in 15 years--and of course, I miss the one in which an old high-school acquaintance is performing as Cinderella on a Disney float and the Broadway cast of Elf (Yes, Elf is a musical now) is doing a number. Of course, the room is vacant by noon, but who wants to watch the stupid Eukanuba dog show? Maybe a bunch of people who treat their dogs like the children they'll never have because nobody wants to marry anyone who mouth-kisses their dogs, but not I.

Finally, there is the food. I made cranberry sauce from scratch, and a pretty awesome stuffing (apple-sausage, parsnips, apples, and fresh sage--take that!), so those parts are okay--except the stuffing burned a little because it had to go on the bottom rack of the oven. But guy who was supposed to bring the yams decided that the yams are not going to come. What is Thanksgiving without yams? It's almost as bad as a Thanksgiving without the Macy's Parade...oh wait. And it'll be a miracle if the Turkey doesn't kill us all before 7pm. I didn't even know people still followed the 200-degree guideline (which is nonsense, unless you like turkey jerky). However, the amount of bird to heat to 165-degrees exceeds the amount of time Newton has allowed us to perform such an act in a 200-degree oven. I point these things out and people look at me like I'm some silly amateur who couldn't possibly know how to prepare a turkey. (Yes, young single people know how to cook poultry, too!)

Anyway, it's nigh on time to eat, so if a Thanksgiving miracle happens and all of a sudden makes this the best day ever, I'll let you know. But don't hold your breath.