Why I Hate Thanksgiving

I hate pretty much all holidays. Thanksgiving is a holiday. By the transitive rule, then, it follows that I probably don't care for Thanksgiving. It's possible, however, that Thanksgiving is my least favorite of all the major holidays.

1. We all know that the Pilgrims and Indians story is utter bunk and yet we persist with the obnoxious imagery that's associated with it.
2. It goes by the alternate name "Turkey Day." So now we're not even celebrating anything but the opportunity to eat turkey, which, by the way, most of us can do the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year.
3. The suggestion that we set aside a day to give thanks for all that we're grateful for suggests that it is acceptable to take those same things for granted every other day. This logic can be applied to most holidays... so yes, maybe now you're beginning to understand why I don't like them.
   
4. Under what circumstance is it all right to say "Gobble gobble" as a greeting?
5. The manufactured traditions of this particular holiday -- go be with your family and loved ones and eat until you pass out -- leave those who are unable to participate vulnerable to depression. I've seen so many people scramble to do something, anything, just so they wouldn't have to be alone on Thanksgiving.
   
6. There has to be a better way to give thanks for [what used to be] the plenitude than gratuitous over-consumption. It truly is a celebration geared for the ugliness of ugly Americans, isn't it?
7. Many people complain so much about what they have to do for Thanksgiving, be it traveling, cooking, cleaning, or enduring their relatives, that it seems they're taking the whole notion of this late November holiday for granted. Then, I guess, while softened by a few beers and a whole lot of food, they find the energy to forget their complaints and actually be grateful. But up until that point, the complaining is a level of meta-pointlessness that's beyond annoying. Be grateful, or don't, but don't bitch about being asked to be grateful: that defeats the purpose.
   

Let's see if I can sum this up. The pop culture notion of Thanksgiving is that we should moan about how stressed we are about everything we need to do to prepare for it, and then when it arrives, we should honor some made-up event by eating ourselves into a coma -- to smugly show the starving parts of the world how much better off we are I suppose -- unless we are unable to be with our loves ones, and then we should feel rotten about ourselves.