Thanksgiving: The Gluttonous Food Orgy

Of all of the holidays I dread the most, Thanksgiving is at the top of my list. There are many reasons that I don’t particularly care for the November holiday: my mom died two weeks before Thanksgiving last year, all of the stores skip the horn of plenty décor and go straight for Christmas crap, and no matter how diet conscious you attempt to be, there is no escaping the food.

We were down in Southern California this year for Thanksgiving, which was great from a weather point of view. I’ve found that the warmer you are, the less you eat, which is why people in the mid-West tend to be on the hefty side, while those on the warm, West Coast are a little svelter. It could also be that the West Coasters are vacuous and care more about their looks than their health, but that’s another story. My in-laws claimed the weather was chilly, but they shiver when it dips below 70 degrees. I was just fine, and spent nearly the entire turkey holiday without a jacket.

I still am not sure why any activity remotely related to family seems to center around food, but I’m thinking that if I had been orphaned at a young age I could have spent my teenage years doing something productive like writing poetry or publishing my own magazine instead of trying to use the pliers to zip up my jeans, while one of the Christinas measured my hips. I know most people out there can empathize, after all, is there another house you ever go into, besides your own, where the first thing you do is look in the fridge or cabinets for something to eat?

On turkey day, I began by drinking at least two cups of really strong coffee, while my husband, up at least two hours before me, was studying the ads like they were the Torah. Coffee usually takes my appetite away, and I wanted to save all of my points for the actual meal. I spent most of the day dancing the fine line between trying to help my mother-in-law prepare dinner and staying out of the kitchen to avoid diving into the cheese and crackers. I did pretty well most of the day, until as usual; my brother-in-law and his wife were their mandatory 30 minutes late holding everyone in the family room salivating while the buffet in the kitchen teased us with its fantastic scent.

While we all waited, a great crowd of family and friends was on hand to talk with. I had spent the day before coaching myself to lay off anything alcoholic, but as I said before, it was a crowd of family and friends, so wine helped me enjoy the scenario without going out of my mind. How many times can you really talk about various family members’ illnesses before you want to kill yourself?

When the actual meal did finally take place, I spied the selections carefully avoiding anything with more than two cups of sugar or fat in the recipe. Thank goodness white meat turkey is one of the best meats you could eat. I loaded up on that stuff, despite knowing that I would be in that weird Thanksgiving turkey coma a mere 55 minutes later. I skipped the stuffing and the Jell-O mold; the stuffing to avoid the fat, the Jell-O mold, because they always freaked me out just a bit, and don’t ask me why. My meal basically consisted of veggies and meat, but it was great and I didn’t feel so guilty about it.

It’s kind of strange to think about what this particular holiday evolved from. In school we learned that it was a fun feast between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans, which when I went to elementary school were still referred to as Indians. In college, the real story came out that the meal was really a ploy to give the Native Americans (which is what they were referred to by the time I went to college) diseased blankets, so they would get sick and die, and the uber-religious, hypocrite Pilgrims could take their land. It must seem so justifying now to the Native Americans that the decedents of those same swarthy, lying bastards are now in their tribal casinos every weekend losing an assload of money. What can you say, payback is truly a bitch!

After two days of turkey leftovers and dining out, I hit the food wall on Saturday night, so hard; I didn’t even eat the cookie the nice flight attendant offered me on the plane ride home. Gluttony may be a fun thing to do in one short, yearly spurt, but if you carry it on for any length of time, you begin to feel like that poor, severely obese guy on tv who had to be carried to the hospital on a horse gurney.

I’m glad Thanksgiving is over, and I can once again return to my normal eating and workout schedules. I’m also glad that I’m only a third generation American, so none of my relatives had anything to do with the raw deal those pious, English schmucks gave the Native Americans. However, I’ll still gladly support their casinos.