Have you noticed that Thanksgiving, as a separate and unique holiday, has all but disappeared from the airways and stores? Sure, there are still ads featuring stuffed turkeys and stuffed relatives (this is probably redundant), and the stores are busting with birds, but the whole concept of Thanksgiving itself seems to have been wiped off the commercial map. I can't believe I'm actually complaining about this, since every holiday seems to be nothing more than a string of commercials. But I think what I find most irritating is the fact that a whole group of holidays has been crammed into one another, like a turducken -- you know, that macabre act of jamming a chicken into a duck and then stuffing the whole fowl mess into a turkey. Only a rabid carnivore could come up with such a freakish concept. Does anybody actually eat those things? What do you cut into them with, a band saw?
Anyway, I think that's what's become of Thanksgiving. It's the duck between the chicken of Halloween and the turkey that is Christmas. I'm not yet sure where Hanukkah and Kwanzaa fit into all of this. Maybe they're the extended version of Turducken, the Rôti Sans Pareil, or "roast without equal," from 19th century France, in which 17 birds were nested within one another. Nor have I figured out where New Year's fits -- maybe it's just the cheap champagne we swill to deaden the absurdity of it all. But I miss those Thanksgiving ads and their idealistic notions of Pilgrims (with the emphasis on grim) sitting peacefully with Indians, breaking bread rather than treaties. You know, the Norman Rockwell ideal of family and "freedom from want."
I guess we can thank Walmart for starting this screwing-up of the holidays. After all, the minute Labor Day is over out come the cheap Halloween costumes, gaudy autumn decorations, chintzy tinsel, and plastic evergreens. It's all like one big cauldron of crap, from the minute you walk in the store. Well, granted -- it's that way all the time, but around this time of year it's especially egregious. Bathing suits hanging next to faux-fur coats is amusing -- maybe even convenient if you belong to a Polar Bear club. But there's just something wrong about aluminum Christmas trees appearing along side candy corn and cornucopias.
There's a bit of irony to be found in our modern Thanksgiving. Take the research done by Robyn Gioia. According to Gioia, a fifth-grade teacher at the Bolles School in Ponte Vedra, the original thanksgiving festival was started, not by the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock but by a Spanish explorer, Pedro Menendez de Aviles, who landed at what is now Saint Augustine, Florida on September 8, 1565, and celebrated a feast of thanksgiving with Timucua Indians. They apparently dined on bean soup. Woo hoo! Hey, that's over 50 years before the Pilgrims sat down with their Indians. Guess the Pilgrims had better PR. We know the Indians didn't.
Then too, Thanksgiving is a harvest festival. But when you think of factory farmed turkeys, genetically modified sweet potatoes, and preservative-laden stuffing, there's not much to be festive about. Yummy! Pass the carcinogens, please.
My point isn't to depress you or put you off your turkey dinner. It's simply to draw attention to the fact that Thanksgiving, which, along with pumping us up for a season of 'spend like it's 1999,' and is ideally supposed to herald a season of thankfulness and good will, has been pretty much appropriated by the collective Holiday and rendered insignificant. We jump right
out of our made-in-China flameproof costumes (OK, if they're made in China they're likely not flameproof) and into our ho ho holy days of rampant capitalism with neither a thought nor a breath to give thanks for whatever we have.
Even though Thanksgiving is based on an improbable myth of indigenous cooperation and invader benevolence, it's still nice to imagine there was one instance in our history of belligerence in which people actually sat down and got along with one another. Then again, if modern Thanksgiving gatherings are any indication, it's all PR.
I guess we can thank Walmart for starting this screwing-up of the holidays. After all, the minute Labor Day is over out come the cheap Halloween costumes, gaudy autumn decorations, chintzy tinsel, and plastic evergreens. It's all like one big cauldron of crap, from the minute you walk in the store. Well, granted -- it's that way all the time, but around this time of year it's especially egregious. Bathing suits hanging next to faux-fur coats is amusing -- maybe even convenient if you belong to a Polar Bear club. But there's just something wrong about aluminum Christmas trees appearing along side candy corn and cornucopias.
There's a bit of irony to be found in our modern Thanksgiving. Take the research done by Robyn Gioia. According to Gioia, a fifth-grade teacher at the Bolles School in Ponte Vedra, the original thanksgiving festival was started, not by the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock but by a Spanish explorer, Pedro Menendez de Aviles, who landed at what is now Saint Augustine, Florida on September 8, 1565, and celebrated a feast of thanksgiving with Timucua Indians. They apparently dined on bean soup. Woo hoo! Hey, that's over 50 years before the Pilgrims sat down with their Indians. Guess the Pilgrims had better PR. We know the Indians didn't.
Then too, Thanksgiving is a harvest festival. But when you think of factory farmed turkeys, genetically modified sweet potatoes, and preservative-laden stuffing, there's not much to be festive about. Yummy! Pass the carcinogens, please.
My point isn't to depress you or put you off your turkey dinner. It's simply to draw attention to the fact that Thanksgiving, which, along with pumping us up for a season of 'spend like it's 1999,' and is ideally supposed to herald a season of thankfulness and good will, has been pretty much appropriated by the collective Holiday and rendered insignificant. We jump right
out of our made-in-China flameproof costumes (OK, if they're made in China they're likely not flameproof) and into our ho ho holy days of rampant capitalism with neither a thought nor a breath to give thanks for whatever we have.Even though Thanksgiving is based on an improbable myth of indigenous cooperation and invader benevolence, it's still nice to imagine there was one instance in our history of belligerence in which people actually sat down and got along with one another. Then again, if modern Thanksgiving gatherings are any indication, it's all PR.
No comments:
Post a Comment