Thanksgiving Boycott

I have come to the conclusion that Thanksgiving is a highly overrated holiday. Not to mention, it is antiquarian and reinforces traditional gender roles within the family. Now I know I shouldn't assume that every family is like mine, but from my experiences mine is more typical than atypical. The day proceeds as follow:

~Ungodly hour in the a.m.: mom wakes up to start working on the Thanksgiving meal
~Roughly one hour later: dad stumbles out of bed, immediately turns on the TV
~10 minutes later: dad grumbles and mom continues Turkey Day preparations while simultaneously starting breakfast
~Following 3-5 hours: mom is slaving away in the kitchen while dad flips back and forth between basketball and football games
~Food time: everything ready but at least half of the intended guests are not there
~1 hour after food is ready: Everyone is here but now dad is in a pissy mood because he had to wait to eat and mom is exhausted
~1 hour later: Food is consumed, people start straggling away and mom is now left in the kitchen cleaning up and putting away leftovers

Now, I can hear the criticism already, "well, why didn't you help?" Well...I did. I took over breakfast duty this year, did an emergency run to the grocery store, and helped with last minute preparations. But I had to blackmail Steve into doing the Stovetop stuffing (which is his special request every year), and any mention to dad about getting off his lazy ass to help out is scoffed at or simply ignored. The remainder of the approximately 14 guests made very little contribution to the over all effort. And it kind of annoyed me.

As we were gathered around the dining room table (minus dad, who was still watching games), my older brother tried to coax his youngest son into "saying the blessing." Having very little patience for religion or children, I immediately offered to take over the duty. My blessing? "Mom, bless you for cooking for all of us today."

Every year I walk away from Thanksgiving (and sometimes Christmas) a little more bitter than the year before. It is a horrible experience for me. I abhorr seeing my mother slave away for holiday I don't believe is truly worth celebration. It chaps my ass to see my father so uninvolved in the whole process. And really...I've never felt particularly close to most of my family, and such get-togethers only serve to make me feel that little bit more out-of-the-loopish. So my solution: I am officially boycotting Thanksgiving. And depending on the Christmas celebrations this year, possibly all large family gatherings in general.

Of course, I haven't shared this with my mother yet...but I'm sure she'll understand.

Now taking offers of alternative celebratory suggestions.