Chinook
by George Hosier II - November 23, 2006

Thank Who?

I propose that Thanksgiving should be cancelled. Permanently. It seems to be more of a nuisance than it’s worth. It simply doesn’t have the bling that other holidays have. I’m a firm believer that one shouldn’t cling onto a holiday simply for tradition’s sake. If it no longer serves a purpose, we should be sharp enough to admit it, discard it, and move on. I’ve pondered this carefully, and I think I have some brilliantly well-founded reasons for my proposition.

My first reason is that gratitude is simply outdated. When I was a kid, people had too much time on their hands, so they made up an elaborate system of etiquette, which was really quite strained and unnatural. Everyone was expected to practice this quaint tradition of saying “Thank You” for just about any old reason.

When the grocer wrapped your order you were supposed to say it. When the gas station attendant pumped your gas you said it. When the neighbor lady brought you a homemade apple pie, you said it. It was almost a ritualistic thing. Under certain conditions, there was a precise magical mantra that a person was required to chant if they wanted to be considered socially acceptable. Some examples of other incantations are “Please”, “Excuse Me” and “May I request the hand of your daughter in marriage?”

Nowadays the guy in the grocery store isn’t called a grocer any more. He’s called “Hey, you! Can I get some service over here?” There are also no more gas station attendants. Gasoline is conveniently “self-serve”, and we pride ourselves in our capacity for self-serving. The neighbor lady no longer has a clue how to make apple pie that doesn’t come out of a box, and if she could, she’s too busy to make it, and if she could and she wasn’t, she certainly wouldn’t bring it over to you, and if she could and she wasn’t and she did, we’d think she was smoking something.

The “Thank You” protocol has been retired with the VHS video format. In fact, it probably retired with the eight-track tape. The new standard in human interaction is called the “Thank Who?” protocol. It’s much more laid back and user friendly. This new school of etiquette permits you to swear at the grocery checkout girl if she’s too slow in processing the arthritic grandmother in the line ahead of you with the box full of coupons. When you drive across the street to serve yourself at the gas pump, the “Thank Who Book of Manners suggest that you speed away without paying, congratulating yourself on your cleverness. Finally, if your cell phone rings and it’s your live-in girlfriend’s father being rude enough to ask you if you ever plan on marrying his daughter, it is proper to get in a screaming match with him and suggest all sorts of startling hobbies that he may want to take up.

Yes, indeed! Saying “Thank You” may have been kind of cute back when people had nothing better to do than sit on the running board of their rusty Model-T Ford, talk, whittle and spit, but we are just a bit more sophisticated than that now.

Another reason to cancel Thanksgiving is that it comes at a really inconvenient time. Between Halloween in October and Christmas in December, there really isn’t much point in trying to squeeze in a non-hedonistic holiday that expects me to reflect on my indebtedness to others rather than other people’s indebtedness to me.

At Halloween we wear gross and psychotic costumes while threatening physical harm or property damage to perfect strangers unless they give us candy. At Christmas, we wear silly costumes while pigging out on pure cholesterol and demanding expensive stuff from family and friends! Life doesn’t get much better than that! Wouldn’t it be great to be able to transition straight from one orgy to the other without having to pause in mid-revel to try to simulate some sappy antiquated emotion called gratitude?

Fortunately, I notice most stores have begun to think sensibly and have pretty much already bypassing Thanksgiving. The day after Halloween, you see the rubber masks of monsters and mutilated corpses disappear from shelves, only to be replaced by the festive lights and glittery baubles that represent the great me-fest that we now call Christmas.

Apart from the previously mentioned obsolete expression of thankfulness, there’s really not much that Thanksgiving has to offer that can’t be picked up by one of the other two Holidays. You can do the pumpkins and Indian corn thing at Halloween. You can dress up like a Pilgrim or indigenous American at Halloween. You can eat vast quantities of Turkey and stuffing at Christmas dinner. I mean, that’s pretty much Thanksgiving isn’t it? Oh, yeah, I forgot--there’s that extra day off of work. Well, I suppose we could come up with something to cover that. How about Jack-o-lantern Burial Day or Christmas tree Decorating Day?

Finally, there’s a third very important reason why Thanksgiving should go the way of the Dodo Bird and the pay phone. That reason is religion! How in the world can the government honor such a blatantly religious celebration? By its very essence, Thanksgiving requires one to reach outside of oneself and acknowledge one’s dependence on a higher power. If you doubt that, let me quote a public official:
“The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God…

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that…they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience...fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed...

A. Lincoln”
That’s right! Those were President Abraham Lincoln’s words in his Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day on October 3, 1863. Can you imagine? I thought one of the bedrocks of this country was supposed to be the separation of church and state. This is just intolerable, if you ask me. What about those wonderful folks who are humanists or naturalists. They don’t believe in any higher power beyond themselves. They are masters of their own fate and captains of their soul. It is unfair to expect them to celebrate a holiday that suggests an “Almighty God”. It’s blatant discrimination!
If you start permitting stuff like that, pretty soon, everybody will want to celebrate their own religion. Then next thing you know, we will have a society rich with diversity and tolerant of each other regardless of race, creed or ethnicity. No, no! If people want to be religious, let them do it in the privacy of the dark space under their bed in a sound-proofed room, not right out in front of everyone.
We need to keep the town square sterile and completely devoid of anything that resembles personal opinion, because as soon as I express an opinion about something, whether it be religion, or how I like my eggs cooked, then someone is going to disagree with me. Now I’ve moved past the great American principle of freedom of self determination and infringed on someone else’s divergent opinion. Therefore, I have caused them emotional pain. Their values have been challenged. They might have to revisit their position and justify it, or even defend it. Now we have engaged in a debate. And, obviously, a free exchange of ideas in a public debate, as everyone knows, is the death of a democracy.
Nope, we need to abolish Thanksgiving—the sooner the better! Each of us will then be able to have fun, fun, fun in our own comfort zone. You stay out of my life, and I’ll stay out of yours. If you annoy me, I should have the right to do whatever it takes to protect my bubble, and vice versa. Our entire governmental and social system might even be able to evolve to the status of Anarchy. Wouldn’t that be something to be thankful for?
 

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