You're a Mean One ~ Blog 23

I can make this face without makeup, minus the hue of green.

If you want to start a religious argument, and this works among all brands of Christians as well as non-believers, you can always say my favorite religious holiday is Thanksgiving.

Works every time.

"But it's not a religious holiday," they always respond.

Sure it is. It was started by Puritans as a time of thanksgiving to God.

"Yeah, but you don't go to church," is the typical response.

A lot of people don't go to church on Christmas and they still consider it a religious holiday. Christmas and Thanksgiving are inextricably intertwined. Moreso, as Christmas Creep has overtaken my favorite holiday, with Walmart staying open all day and national stores opening for sales at 8 p.m. (Does anybody want to bet that next year it won't be 6 p.m.?)

This is a minority opinion, to be sure, but Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday simply because it's very, very difficult to screw up. There are no presents at Macy's for Thanksgiving -- there are no stocking-stuffers that include gravy.

It is the simplest of holidays. Get together with family and/or friends; eat a lot of food; watch football. We'll see you again next year. It's beautiful.

For years, The Wife and I hosted Thanksgivings in our Utah home. We invited other wanderers, people with no family or who didn't want to be with their families. It was an eclectic gathering. The instructions were simple: We'll cook turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes and stuffing. You should bring whatever food you would really, really want to be at your Thanksgiving table.

Joey G. was a Thanksgiving regular. He's allergic to poultry so he always brought lasagna. Here Comes the Sun was a Cambodian-by-way-of California; he brought fried rice once.

We were not hosting Thanksgiving this year. Our Boston apartment has lovely granite countertops and a five-burner stove. It is also 537 square feet, according to TW's measurements.

Fortunately, we're nice people and have friends. Jo-Jo (our former Maine landlord and Molly Lu's mother) invited us to her sister's house outside Boston. It was lovely having someplace to go, with easy company and people we know. We watched football, then played football in the backyard with the kids. Thanksgiving is exceedingly hard to screw up.

It wasn't the same as hosting Thanksgiving, which we aspire to doing again in the future. But 537 feet is 537 feet. Which brings us to the next holiday. Where do you put a Christmas tree in an apartment with no spare square feet? Try saying those last three words aloud.

But there we go, letting Christmas creep into a log about Thanksgiving. That will just have to wait for tomorrow, when we discuss The Grinch. That may or may not be a reference to myself.