Thanksgiving is nigh. It snuck up on me this year, what with my new job and various other time-sucking endeavors commanding all my idle thoughts. And the precious few free brain cycles are already focused on goddamn Christmas presents. Look what you’ve done to me, product peddlers of America! Are you happy that I’m so preoccupied with mentally dissecting the hidden material wants and needs of my family and friends that I can’t fully focus on the impending gluttony of food, drink, and football?
Of course, right now I’m focused on what an estimated 38.4 million other Americans are focused on (here): traveling at least 50 miles to my chosen place of revelry. What I don’t understand is, if the US population is 304 million, that means that only 12% of the population is traveling more than 50 miles today. Why is this small percentage of traveling Americans capable of so famously overwhelming our transportation infrastructure?
Anecdotally, most people over the age of 18 claim to prefer Thanksgiving over Christmas, which is curious given that Thanksgiving has been relagated to a mere pitstop on the highway to Christmas mania. The turkey hasn’t even cooled off before the Christmas songs start, the decorations come out, and hundreds of thousands of crazy people flock to big-box stores, hoping to procure more crap for their dollar. Has the recession cooled our ardor for door-busting bargains, or will it only fan the flames of the Stuff Stampede?
A sampling of what I’m thankful for: that I have a rewarding full-time job at a wonderful company that will pay me to enjoy a 4-day weekend with my loved ones. I’m thankful for my husband, who utterly completes me. I’m thankful for my family and friends, who have so patiently humored my idiosyncrasies. over the years. I’m thankful for mountains, for avocados, for snow, for wine, for the Armani perfumes, for owls, for PBS’s Nova, for my favorite light-blue sweater, for libraries, for Seinfield re-runs, for waking up each day with a sense of purpose and wonder.
This year, as you give token thanks for all your blessings, consider the fate of all this semi-forced gratitude. We give the thanks, but who takes it? I picture all this expression of indebtedness spiraling into a void, an abyss, a pit of Thankstaking, and it never, ever says “You’re welcome.”
