An American Thanksgiving
I was reading about people on the internet discussing their various Thanksgiving activities, which prompted me to think about the American tradition of Thanksgiving. If someone ended up here from Mars, for example, and had no clue about the holiday, what would you tell them so they could understand?
Let’s see, every November, we celebrate the fact that we came over here from England, suffered from disease and hunger until we were rescued from dying by the natives. To thank them, we took their land and banished them to reservations to sell things like handmade keychains.
After spending way too much money on traveling, food and stuffing ourselves, we wake up extremely early the next day to spend even more money on merchandise that we originally had no intention of buying, but we have now convinced ourselves of its necessity because of its enormously “reduced” prices.
The following day, most of Middle America spends the day decorating for Christmas, decorating the inside and outside of their houses with various pieces of crap and lights, doubling or tripling their light bill for the month of December. All this occurs before we have even celebrated the December gift giving holiday.
And for all this, we give thanks, telling ourselves we are not a gluttonous, selfish, brainwashed society based on consumerism. Sing it with me:
Don’t wanna be an American idiot.
One nation controlled by the media.
Information nation of hysteria.
It’s going out to idiot America.
November 26th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Um…you’ve got a point here.