I have a dirty little secret. I hate Thanksgiving. I know, I know. I'm a very bad person. It's a wonderful holiday about family and close friends coming together, remembering all we're grateful for. It's about cooking and eating a lovely, traditional meal shared long ago by two different cultural groups, the Pilgrims and the Indians. Or something.
But I'm sorry, I just can't get excited about having the same old food every year on a cold, gray, dark late-November day and over-eating until you feel like you're going to die. Not to mention the fact that you're so tired from ingesting all that tryptophan in the turkey and gorging on a huge meal in the middle of the afternoon that you're ready for bed by 5 p.m.
Yes, if there's one holiday I could definitely do without, it's Thanksgiving. It's really just a celebration of that deadly sin called gluttony, isn't it? But this year I've found a pretty creative way to avoid the whole thing altogether. I'm going to have a baby.
I got pregnant around Valentine's Day and am due to give birth Thanksgiving week. Bingo! The perfect excuse to avoid the usual boring old holiday! Brilliant!
So if you're like me and are a bit of a Thanksgiving scrooge, then consider getting knocked up some time in mid-February to get out of it. If you're a man, you get to do the knocking up. Score!
In all seriousness, I think the fact that I'll be having my first baby this week will make me stop being such a sourpuss about the holiday. This year, instead of doing the usual and going home to my parents' house -- where we get together with family friends we've known my whole life -- my parents are coming to our place in New York. Oh, how devilish it feels to defy traditions!
Even more rebellious: We're just ... winging it. No stressful preparations, no elaborate menu, no talk of who will cook what and where we'll eat. No plans at all for what we'll do that day. We might not even have turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. Maybe pizza is in the cards. Maybe Big Macs. The horror!
I think giving birth will make this time of year magical in a way that nothing else ever could. Instead of dreading the holiday (though trust me, I never complain about that four-day weekend), I'll look forward to it every year from this one forward. It will always remind me of how I feel now, this Thanksgiving -- full of anticipation, excitement, hope, and yes, immense gratitude. I will forever be thankful that my daughter arrived when she did. My journey as a mother and my own family are beginning just a few days before a holiday that now, finally, has true meaning for me.
Do you hate Thanksgiving and if so have you ever done anything to avoid it?
Image via fotolin1/Flickr
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Comments 21
Honestly, The whole Holiday season is a bummer to me. Money down the drain, xtra unwanted pounds, and a reminder of just how far away you are from family you never see. I wish I could be more positive but everthing has become so comercialized and phony. Where did the spirit of these times go?
I just don't do it. I live 2 hours from my hometown, it's a reasonable traveling distance, but I have certain members of my family I don't want to be around so I choose not to be a part of it. Why should I subject myself to stress and irritation just to be "normal" and do what other people think I should do so they'll feel better. I'm a state employee and get paid once a month, so realistically, I don't have the money to travel. I had 3 different people offer to give me money to get home with and I declined. I just really don't want to be there. We haven't done traditional Thanksgiving in several years because of my dad's illness, and now that he's passed, everyone wants to do it. And i was already hearing my mother complain last night about how she forgot how tiring it is to cook, and they are all probably sitting around right now saying that we are not doing this again next year. And yet they will.