This week marks two special holidays. Not only do we get to celebrate Fruesday, the most anticipated Ball State University holiday of all time, but also a time-honored national holiday known as Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving gives us a time, as Americans, to have feelings of appreciation, or "give thanks," for all the little things in our lives that we enjoy and take for granted the other 364 days out of the year. However, for most of us, this mainly constitutes being thankful for a four-day weekend, or, thanks to Fruesday, a six-day weekend! Awesome.
But Thanksgiving is more. It traces its roots back to the pilgrims of Plymouth colony, who feasted after their first harvest in 1621. The pilgrims were thankful they had brought in their first harvest to would sustain them through the long New England winter and invited the local Massasoit tribe to partake in the feast, which consisted of venison, not turkey. It is also interesting to note the first Thanksgiving lasted three days. It probably would have lasted longer, but the pilgrims had not come up with the idea of Fruesday yet, so three days was the best they could do.
The tradition of regular Americans celebrating Thanksgiving started during the Civil War when President Abraham Lincoln declared a national day of celebration in order to raise morale during wartime. This meant that every citizen, whether or not they had recently learned how to grow corn and/or were in no danger of starving to death during a cold New England winter, was given the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving. And Thanksgiving has been going strong ever since.
Currently, Thanksgiving is full of rich traditions everyone can enjoy, like waiting to get into the bathroom and trying to describe the color of pumpkin pie. (Brown-ish?)
Football has long become a mainstay of every Thanksgiving Day, and it is not uncommon to see a traditional American family to celebrate Thanksgiving by huddling around the television, watching the gridiron matchup. And, of course, when I say the American family is watching football, I mean that the males in the American family are watching football. The womenfolk of the American family are traditionally consigned to the kitchen, standing over a stovetop full of Stove Top stuffing. (Note: Sociologists consider Thanksgiving traditions the most sexist when compared to any other holiday, aside from Presidents' Day.)
Nevertheless, one of the best Thanksgiving traditions is pretending to know something about football. Even though you may not know anything about the Detroit Lions or the Dallas Cowboys and think that a strong safety is an especially tight seatbelt, it is your duty to comment on every play of every game and try to make yourself look like a macho and sports-knowledgeable individual. Unless, of course, you are female, and then it is your duty to stir that stuffing with gusto, because those guys deserve a good meal after a hard day of sitting on their asses and pretending to know something about football.
This leads into the other great Thanksgiving tradition of ignoring particularly annoying family members. Even though everyone will deny it vehemently when asked, everyone has a cousin or aunt or uncle or sister that they don't particularly enjoy spending a lot of time with, and this can become increasingly difficult over the holidays. And even though everyone claims that turkey contains a magic chemical that makes you sleepy, falling asleep after Thanksgiving dinner is clearly a defensive technique used to deflect conversations with even the peskiest relatives.
So this Thanksgiving, give thanks for everything in your life and celebrate the traditions that make Thanksgiving a special holiday. When your family goes around the dinner table and you have to say something in your life that you are thankful for, give thanks that you won't have to answer this riddle until next Thanksgiving. Oh, and make sure you give thanks for Fruesday.
Write to Paul at pjmetz@bsu.edu
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