Happy Thanksgiving 2019: Including Booze, Zombies, Joan Crawford, and George Washington

“Thanksgiving is falling on a Thursday this year?” – Home Improvement

You can make more friends with six bottles of wine and a kind word than with just a kind word.  I think that is somewhere in the Bible?

Thanksgiving is, I think, my favorite holiday.  When done properly, it is a holiday devoted to, well, giving thanks.  It’s like a super easy quiz question – what you’re supposed to do is right in the label.

When I was growing up I certainly looked forward to getting presents at Christmas.  But the very presents that made Christmas so exciting when I was five or six somehow detracted from the holiday when I was eleven or twelve.  Getting presents was still nice, but when it came to serenity, nothing matched Thanksgiving.  At a younger age, presents were more important than serenity.  As I grew older?  Serenity took a lead.   Now?  Serenity is miles ahead of presents.

Ma Wilder saved the tins.  I have no idea why.  Also?  Better if the sauce is not too blue.

I should point out, that when growing up, I lived in our mountain redoubt, Wilder’s Nest.  The nearest town that had a fast food restaurant was 45 miles away.  The nearest store that you could buy a cassette tape at was 45 miles away in that same town.  In a radius of 10 miles from my house, the total population was probably 200 people or less.  It was so rural that I thought laughing stock were amused cattle.

But Black Friday didn’t exist.  Shopping the day after Thanksgiving?  Nope – in fact if we left the property at all (besides driving 30 miles to pick up Grandma Wilder to bring her to Thanksgiving dinner and drop her off afterwards back at her place) it would be to see how deep the snow was up on the pass.  Not that we didn’t go outside – on Thanksgiving day my brother and I would often throw a football in the front yard, if it wasn’t too cold.  And as the youngest, it was my job to bring firewood from the pile to the house.

You have to be very careful hanging coats at Joan’s house.  Apologies to Blue Oyster Cult®.

What we did do, however, was be together as a family.  We played cards.  We (minus Ma Wilder) watched football.  I read novels.  Pa Wilder might fiddle in the shop with something, especially if Ma Wilder was irritated about something.  It was past hunting season, but too soon for snowmachines.  The weekend was quiet.  And not quiet like hanging out in the bushes at the neighbor’s bedroom window quiet, I mean really quiet.

I can’t say that Christmas was quiet.  Heck, it’s not quiet now.  And while most Thanksgiving holidays looked the same, Christmas was often much more memorable – but memorable for the wrong reason.  My junior year left me as mad as I can remember after a Christmas, and not because I didn’t get what I wanted.  But I can’t remember a bad Thanksgiving.

Even now, Thanksgiving has always been a relaxing day for The Mrs. and I – we never let it be dictated by outside forces – Thanksgiving is a family holiday – our immediate family.  Since we’ve been in Mayberry, we certainly do have dinner often with my in-laws, but if we decided to go to Nepal to have tea with Liam Neeson so he can paint our toenails again, well, we’d do that.  On Christmas, we give into that pressure.  But not on Thanksgiving.

I resent vegans.  They eat the food my food eats.  So inconsiderate.

But the name is Thanksgiving.  Being thankful, having gratitude for the things around you is very healthy.  People who are grateful are more healthy, have better relationships, sleep better, and have better self-esteem whether or not they get a participation trophy.

What am I thankful for?

• My family.
• The fact that my family puts up with me.
• Canned corn.
• The relative prosperity I live in and my economic situation.
• The readers of this blog.
• That the aliens from Tau Ceti no longer come at night and impregnate me.
• That the aliens from Tau Ceti pay child support for the stupid alien babies.
• That we have the freedom that we do have in our country today.
• That The Mrs. uses a snow-globe instead of her glass eye during the holidays.
• That the troubles I have had in life have made me better.
• That I still see amazing things every day – a great sunrise, a tree silhouetted against the stars.
• The health of my family.
• People being kind when they have no reason to be.
• That every week I get to learn something new, and make something new.

Okay, the two of you that saw Firefly® are laughing.

George Washington tried to capture the essence of Thanksgiving in his first proclamation:

By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.  That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks:

• for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation
• for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war
• for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed
• for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted
• for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;
• and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions:

• to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually
• to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed
• to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord
• to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us
• and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Geo. Washington

George Washington spent about 10% of his presidential salary on whiskey.  He had more than one gun.  He grew tobacco.  So, is the ATF proof of British collusion?

I know that George isn’t universally loved:  Lord Bison, for instance, is not amused.  But Washington did do some things right, and set a precedent that more or less set the stage for retaining the freedoms we still have left, and has the best eggnog recipe (Washington: Musk, Patton, and Jack Daniels all Rolled into . . . the ONE).  And as to his proclamation of Thanksgiving:  I’m not sure that a similar document could be written today, especially since we have spellcheck.

It’s well known that zombies will ignore Congress.  They want to eat brains, right?

Regardless of what you are thankful for, I wish you a very happy Thanksgiving!