Look, I get it. A day of football and digestive distress isn’t sexy.
But there’s pumpkin spice and jack o’ lanterns in August, white lights and evergreen wreaths in retailers on Oct. 1. What about poor Thanksgiving?
I’ve always felt the need to defend Thanksgiving. I’ve defended Thanksgiving when my wife accused it of doing “irreparable damage” to our bodies. I’ve defended it when family in Italy decried the mass consumption of poveri tacchini—those poor turkeys. I’ve defended it when friends described the day as a chore, a humdrum family meal.
Eventually, it dawned on me that I seemed to be the only one defending Thanksgiving. Could I be alone in my love for Turkey Day?
I had to face that the answer seemed to be “yes.” While the rest of the country spent Thanksgiving pretending to be interested in the Detroit Lions to avoid conversation, I’d shoot awake in anticipation of the whole pumpkin pie I’d eat 12 hours from now.
Concerned loved ones tried to understand my feelings. “Why do you like Thanksgiving so much?” they’d ask. That’s a hard question to answer—especially with a mouthful of mashed potatoes.
For me, Thanksgiving feels like a beginning, a kick-off party. The four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas have an energy, an anticipation, a stress level that no other time of the year can match.
As wonderful as Christmas is, that’s it. That’s the end. It’s a bizarro Big Bang—an explosion of energy, and then nothing. Just four months of long, cold winter.
I guess if we’re being precise, my enthusiasm stems from the Christmas season. But my energy is at its highest on Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving really is a lot like life—you work hard for a long time, and in the end, you’re left gassy, exhausted and with nothing but your family and your television.
I know my logic is flawed, as if I said my favorite place in the world is Newark Airport because being there means I am about to go somewhere else. (Newark Airport is not my favorite place in the world. I am weird, not insane.)
The blame for all this rests, as all things do, with my upbringing. My Thanksgivings growing up weren’t like everyone else’s. For me, Thanksgiving was an event. It was the day of my family’s most peculiar tradition, known colloquially as “The Hall.”
This name, The Hall, is really just shorthand. My grandmother’s family is very Irish—and thus very large—so it needed to rent a venue spacious enough to fit everyone who attends Thanksgiving dinner. The solution was made half a century ago to relocate to a VFW hall. And ever since, generations of O’Mullans have been gathering at The Hall for Thanksgiving. The name has stayed the same even though the venue itself has changed.
All the branches of the family tree are older and bigger now. We’ve lost a number of faces that made the hall The Hall, and as little ones come along for my generation, attendance at the big family Thanksgiving is not as regular as it used to be. But those days in The Hall—playing football with second cousins I’d only see once a year, on an asphalt parking lot littered with Bud Lite cans—have made their mark.
I had always assumed everyone harbored similar warm feelings for Thanksgiving. But it wasn’t until recently that I discovered they were unusual, that to many people Thanksgiving is just a pit stop sandwiched between Halloween and Christmas.
This realization began nearly a decade ago, when I started an annual handturkey contest here at the Hamilton Post. Four years in a row, I asked co-workers to trace their hand, turn it into a turkey that would be judged by local Kindergarten students. I enjoyed the whole experience, but it became harder and harder to find people as enthusiastic about the enterprise as I was.
Ultimately, like all good things, the handturkey contest came to an end. But still I pressed on.
My wife and I had the honor of hosting our first Thanksgiving last year. It gave new life and color to my admiration of Thanksgiving. The endless hours of cooking. The manic games of bumper carts in ShopRite. The fruits of our week-long labor being gobbled up in 20 minutes. It was wonderful and oh so American.
I may sound sarcastic, but I’m being genuine. Thanksgiving really is a lot like life—you work hard for a long time, and in the end, you’re left gassy, exhausted and with nothing but your family and your television.
If you can’t find the poetry in that, friend, then that’s fine. More pumpkin pie for me.
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