I'm doing one of those list posts things. I don't like picking numbers, though, so it's "a few" steps to help improve the quality of your Thanksgiving experience.
- Don't ask for things.
I don't mean refrain from asking your fellow diners to pass the gravy. I mean don't ask for things - hell, if you can avoid it, don't think about things you want at all. Being with family, especially extended family, vastly increases the temptation to discuss that new tv you'd like to buy - and Christmas is lurking just around the corner, after all. Our need to be conspicuous consumers, however, is misplaced on this particular day.
Also, can we seriously just let Black Friday be tomorrow, for another 24 hours? Is that so difficult?
- Communicate.
Initially I thought of saying "turn off your cell phones and laptops and tablets," but I quickly realized that is both exceptionally overused and incorrect. Sometimes the people we want - or need - to talk to are not at the table with us.
The point, however, is to spend time with the people to whom you are devoting the day. If your family is elsewhere and you can't be with them, consider a Skype call or some texts.
But above all, don't sit at a table with those who love you and spend the whole time mass texting acquaintances or updating Facebook. Be where you are, with who you are with, and take a break from the obsessive nature of social networks. Trust me, it's refreshing.
- Stop talking about the pillage/invasion/relocation/exploitation of Native Americans.
It's not a bad thing to be aware that the history we teach kids and parrot to each other around holidays like this is incorrect. It's certainly not a bad thing to find and teach the correct versions of events, especially when everyone is trying to market and marginalize the struggles of others in favor of a "family friendly" holiday.
That said, odds are good that even the "correct" version of the origin story for Thanksgiving you've got in your head is blatantly false. Thus, I'd pose the following question: does it help anyone to insist that we all mute our enjoyment and rare expression of good-naturedness in order to commemorate the atrocities committed by some of our ancestors? Should we we all weep and gnash our teeth over events we are not responsible for to show our understanding?
No. The truth is harsh - we don't understand. We don't have the proper context to appreciate just how horrendously inhumanely some of our predecessors treated the native cultures here in the U.S.
But it does no one any good to dwell on that. Correct people who spout falsehoods about how Thanksgiving began - perhaps even correct yourself, and do a bit of digging into the history of it.
And then let it go, and encourage the enjoyment of one of the few holidays left that hasn't been choked to death by consumerism just yet.
- Be grateful.
I get genuinely sick of all the "I'm thankful for..." spiels everywhere. Not because I dislike the notion of gratitude. No, I adore the notion of gratitude. It is a complex and deep emotion and one of the best components of humanity.
I get sick of them because so many smack of Hallmark-card-induced "enlightenment." People who incessantly whine about their awful families are suddenly professing their deep and undying love for them, only to go back to normal 12 hours later. It's insincere, and that is disgusting to me.
Be grateful and say thank you, but do so for the things which you are genuinely grateful for in the moment.
Sometimes, yes, that's family or friends or the food on your plate and the roof over your head. But if it isn't, right this second? It is not shallow to say thanks for the new Xbox or movie or cd. It -is- shallow to claim you are thankful for some grandiose and obscure thing you've been considering for less than ten minutes of the day so you can appear humble or enlightened or what have you.
- Try to understand just how much you do have.
This one is tough. In the same breath as saying don't say thanks for things you aren't grateful for at the moment, I'm also telling you to be grateful for things you don't often consider.
But it is worth saying. There are people better off than you, and people worse off than you, and all of us are here trying to make the best of it. Consider for at least a moment of the day that you are alive, and that is no small thing.
If you are having trouble? Go work in a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving night. As it turns out, the people who have the least tend to be the most appreciative of it...and there is a lot to learn from that sentiment, particularly before we start murdering one another over the best deals on gifts.
That pretty much covers it. I'll add, in an unrelated note, that the tryptophan in your turkey is not to blame for the desire to nap. You've been misled. Just let your belt out a bit, or put on sweat pants, and enjoy the thing. There's no need to assign blame for a nice siesta.
Until next time.
- C
No comments:
Post a Comment