"Thanksgiving is Still the Best Holiday in America for 5 reasons: One of Which is You Don't Have to be a Consumer

Okay, so the pilgrims did kill the Native Americans and that wasn't good. But I and other people have had good experiences with Thanksgiving.  To me, it's the best holiday of the year.


These are my reasons.


1. People will share a meal with their family, friend or both, or just people. A chance to bring together people with a person's family in a time poor era in which people have less time for things that matter.


2. People can think about all the things you are grateful for such as the opportunities a person got easily from being born into a state of life.


We are lucky. The chances of not being born are higher than being born. So being born is lucky. Going from that low end of the scale, maybe you had economic, social, and ethnic advantages in this world which may not have been fair for other people but were good for you. If we ever need a reminder of this than it is when we are able to sit down to a stabile situation to eat a meal with people. Those opportunities can be few.


3. You can be proud about all the things you fight for and got., to get you and your loved ones into healthier state of life. For all the hard work you've done when you weren't lucky. For restarting again when you realized you worked hard for something that was meaningless. For continuing to work hard and then finding something that is meaningful.


4. People have an opportunity to eat REAL FOOD. Sure, people can choose an industrial thanksgiving with all the artificial flavors and prepackaged corporate foods they want. Or they can eat real mashed potates(not instant), have gravy made with real cream and meat juice(not creamer), a real turkey(not tofurky), real cranberries(not the canned jello), real apple pie(not the frozen frisbees, or other Real Foods.


4. People have an opportunity to eat "SOLE" food as Tanya from Happy Bear Eats has coined. "Sustainable, Organic, Local, and Ethical" doesn't come on a truck. It doesn't even have to be the foods mentioned in the number above. Traditional thanksgiving meals involved what was locally grown by Americans with commodities of sugar, coffee and other foods being exceptions.


 You can find out what your great grandmother made or what the local people made 200 years ago and resolved that with what is local now.  In my case I will have chicken, instead of turkey..


There is a green road to thanksgiving for people to find or make. Traditional foods have changed somewhat to incorporate foods shipped from far away places such as cranberries or to sexy up Thanksgiving with garlic. However, people can eat local and make food to taste. If you live in the city its hard to find anything local but even the outskirts of the city is better than foods shipped from other countries. 


5. People don't have to buy any cards, presents, sugar, or anything that involves waiting on long lines and being stressed.  Black Friday begins the next day, and its an appropriate name for such a break from spending time with a person's family. Thankgiving, is holiday from being a consumer.


So let's relax and enjoy it. 


And we can laugh at the unsavory bit of Thankgiving in this video by the Adam's Family. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccj2BH25c0I