#ooc

I am so Thankful for you, my friends. Never doubt that I need you and value you. Thank you all for being there for me after all these years.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my friends here in Changeling land. Hope all is well and the food is delicious.

gobble gobble

turkey is in!

Oh, the humanity!

waddles back online I am utterly stuffed. Hope you are all enjoying various expressions of abundance!

full of food

there is tv

TV yes. nod

ha

WAY too much....

it was goooooood

Soooo goooooooooooood......................

haha

the aussie done did good?

So very much foodishness.

oh yes

oh lord

"young sheldon"?

nope nope nope

I REALLY want to watch the Big Bang Theory, but it's not on Netflix yet.

we're watching that right now

Hello

Happy Thanksgiving

TURKEY

"A truly noble bird" -Ben Franklin

Gobble-gobble! (burp)

I had to explain to someone to the UK they were getting our holiday wrong.

(Warning, my response is long, feel free to skip) (His comment)

Yes !

Today is the day that Americans celebrate the work of the actor whose roles include Big, Forrest Gump, Bachelor Party, Saving Private Ryan, Sleepless in Seattle and Philadelphia.
You honoured him with a day dedicated to him.
So give on this day for all his good work.
On Tom Hanks Giving Day or as you Americans shorten it T Hanks Giving Day.

This has been your annual mockery from the other side of the Atlantic.

(My response helping him understand the reason for the stuffing err season)

(Part one) No no, this is the day our nation is supposed to be using as a day of reflection and gratitude. See, in America there was this actual dinner where Colonists sat down with natives and they didn't try to kill each other. Mind you, you can argue that was the happy exception to a very sad rule, but frankly the folks protesting because of what happened after miss the point. Shouldn't we encourage the whole "Let's not be xenophobic ####s to each other and pass the gravy instead" mentality? I mean, that mentality would lead to a happier if somewhat stuffed world.

One time we got it right, then war, genocides, and horrible cultural neener neeners.

So the one time is worth trying to recreate. Of course, it also has to do with bounty of the land and how we should thank God or the Universe, or Bob who is the best shot in the village for the blessings on the table and in your life (Bob, it seems can not only nail a wild turkey at thirty paces, the guy gives great advice to young couples).

Of course, you can be grateful AND Violent if you try (As Soccer games in England among the winning fans will attest) so moments like Sam Adams pushing a Revolutionary Congress to adopt it so our budding nation could be thankful despite the Brits occupying Philly.
(Now a days, many would be thankful if the Brits took it back, but that's another subject, and you are allies now so it wouldn't be nice of us to inflict that on you. And I honestly thing turning over Detroit to a country would be tantamount to a declaration of war on them but I digress).

poor detroit

(Part two)

Washington had his say too making the first nationwide one "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God."
Because we were free of British Tyranny, but not yet their excess 'U's in words like Favor.

Lot of folks acting like Bill and Ted in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey thanking God, but for a most excellent country (We weren't a global power then, and who knew what was happening in Albania back then really? Was there an Albania then? I digress)

The date moved around a bit
Then in the middle of the Civil War, Lincoln, motivated in part by editorials and perhaps as a morale boost sent out an official writing to announce a Thanksgiving in November that went something like "Life is full of ####, when you look at it, from just a Civil War point of view. But onward we must go, with the brother vs Brother show, so I'll give you something morale boosting and distracting now to do" (Monty Python would later improve these lyrics in Life of Bryan) . And for the longest time, the last Thurday in every november was Thanksgiving.
WHAM (And I don't mean the band) the great Depression smashed into America because of under regulated banks and fat catS (Thank goodness the lobbyists tell us that can never happen again). And FDR said "You know what says thankful? Setting our holidays to be more retail friendly" and moved it up a week. The republicans were furious calling it a betrayal of Lincoln (And snarky comments had yet another reason to exist many many decades later but that should go in a political thread) . Franksgiving was not a hit with some.

But in December of 1941 it finally got compromised to be the 4th Thursday in November no matter how many thursdays that year's November would have. Understand, this was before mustaches were on the endangered species list, the whole 'Movember' facial hair breeding program was still a long way off.

And the country breathed a collective sigh of relief because now it knew when to buy football tickets.

Of course, FDR's 'helping retail' worked too well, and now glutted with more than turkey, the corporations wanted more.

(Final part)
Thanksgiving was eventually seized in a hostile take over akin to the Trojan War. A santa showed up at a parade pretending to be an ally, but hidden in the sleigh were thousands of evil marketing elves who convinced everyone that it was perfectly right that the every store in the damn country get tarted up in red and green like a colorblind hooker hoping to distract folks from her fading allure by wearing the brightest bling possible.

Thanksgiving had fallen like a French line strategy, a lot of pomp, a lot of good intentions, and then suddenly it was wondering why a guy named Claus had it on the ground with its bloomers down.

Claus, thinking the war with Thanksgiving was done begin the blitzkrieg on Halloween, and that war continues.

But there is a resistance! Folks who know that Thanksgiving is not about junk you buy that takes up space. It's about junk you buy that stuffs your face! It's about family, and appeasing them so you can think Karma will get them not you because you put up with them this year without expecting a present. It's a time to be grateful for everything you DO have, instead of what you might get; which means you're less likely to kill yourself when you later hear about what Congress has planned as supposed 'good ideas'. It's about hoping or praying for peace, even as you scream for the death of the little man in stripes who just called back your football team's touchdown! It's about remembering the one time in history some folks achieved the awe inspiring moment of two cultures sitting down without killing each other, and trying to recapture that moment. You didn't kill your sibling's spouse, even though he/she is a horrible horrible person. Yay you!

Thanksgiving in America is about gratitude, humility, and hope
As we rub it into the faces of starving nations everywhere that we have so much more than them that's WHY we have an obesity problem, suckers! We're that lucky, we've got fat POOR people! I oughta know, I'm one of them! Suck on that folks in that small African country I cannot remember!
WOOO! USA USA!

I... right.... it's about gratitude.

And, yes, we're grateful for Tom Hanks too.

Mostly we're grateful he's not another Will Farrell. We have one too many of those

we like tom hanks

What's not to like? Loved the line he used in the Simpson's movie "The US Govt. has lost its credibility so its borrowing some of mine" 🙂

Wow. 🙂 All that said, Mr. D., are you likely to get dragged out to a shop-a-palooza tomorrow?

Not without a fight! ✊

Have at 'em. nod nod

I am shopping tomorrow, but was promised cinnamon rolls

Ooo... good bribe

Just don't be willing to crush someone to death to get a TV at 40% off and you'll be ahead of a lot of your fellow shoppers on the ethics scale 😉

I'm actually going to try making cinnamon rolls from scratch tomorrow. Well, actually apple pies with cinnamon roll crusts, baked in muffin tins.