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No Thanks-giving

Thanksgiving, like most holidays, is another that I'd much rather avoid.

And for anyone reading this, are you really all that surprised?

Thanksgiving is like Christmas in many ways. There's all the long drives to family social obligations or if you're unfortunate enough to have to host it yourself, there's the mountains of dishes to clean up. It's only mildly better in that the decorations are slightly less tacky, nor is there an obligation to buy gifts... yet. I'm sure the marketing people at Walmart are looking at ways to cure that.

I've never found anything about Thanksgiving even mildly enjoyable, especially not the food, which is really the whole point of it. I'm not a huge fan of turkey; certainly not enough to stomach 2 weeks of leftovers. I also dislike turnip, squash and the various marrow, harvest type vegetables. And of course, Thanksgiving gives host to one of my two most hated foods: pumpkin pie.

I despise it.

If pumpkin pie were a country, I'd carpet bomb it. What a waste of pie crust that could be wasted better by filling with cloves and Tom Collins mix. If you're going to waste anything, you may as well do it properly.

I also dislike the Thanksgiving tradition convention of giving thanks. Traditionally, I imagine it's about appeasing that all powerful entity in the sky that would otherwise become vengeful and hurtle a poor harvest, blizzards and hordes of armed and angry aboriginal folk at your struggling colony.

Being as I don't believe in appeasement (see the history of Germany, Austria and the Czech Sudetenland, circa 1938) and that I don't live in a colony, I don't see the point in the whole tradition at all.

That said, if I'm generally and not specifically thankful at all, I'm thankful for that for over the last 20 years, I've for the most part managed to avoid Thanksgiving, usually by being in another country that doesn't celebrate it, or hiding in my basement.

Really, if any holiday should be celebrated in October, it should be Trafalgar Day.

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