Thanksgiving Thoughts from the Last 6 Years

I really wanted to have some downtime this week, so I planned to send a rerun column.

I started looking through old Thanksgiving efforts to find one appropriate to send, and I decided to do something I’ve never done before.

I’m putting together a compilation from previous Thanksgiving columns.

I know, I know. How exciting. You’re welcome. Stop it. I’m blushing.

My first trip down memory lane is from 2016. We had just finished a bloody election cycle, which you may remember.

Here goes.

Isn’t it just dandy how everybody is suddenly in a Thanksgiving mood?

We’re all slapping each other on the back and hugging, and doing all the other things people do this time of a year. We’re watching the parade and football games. We’re clogging up good ol’ Facebook with well wishes and family photos.

We’re happier than a bird with a French fry.

Did I miss something?

For the past year we’ve been at each other’s throats. 

We’ve hidden behind our iWhatevers and said things we wouldn’t dare say to someone’s face. We’ve belittled each other. We’ve shared misinformation when we knew better. 

We have ruined friendships and harmed our business relationships. We’ve put hateful signs on our cars and trucks for the sole purpose of irritating the person who got stuck behind us in traffic.

And now, poof. Happy Thanksgiving, y’all! Love ya! When do we eat?

Whew, I’m glad we don’t act like that anymore.

Seriously, I almost put this year’s date on that one and sent it as original, because no one would remember it anyway, and it’s more true today than it was then.

In 2018, I got to the real reason we celebrate Thanksgiving: food.

My fancy digital electric smoker had died, and I bought one that was much simpler. Here’s how the first cook went after I opened the door to add some more wood chips.

When I closed the door, my good old-fashioned thermometer told me the temperature had dropped to around 100 degrees inside.

So I waited for the little orange light to click on to tell me it was heating again.

It didn’t click on.

I resisted the urge to nudge the control knob. I resisted the urge to thump it. I pulled up a chair so I could wait for it to start heating again.

It was like a scene on a Lifetime movie where I was sitting by my grandfather’s hospital bed waiting for him to wake up from a coma.

It did wake up, though, and it worked for about 3 months before it died.

And finally, a clip from 2019.

I can’t stand to hear someone call Thanksgiving “Turkey Day.”

We don’t call halloween “Candy Corn Day.”

We don’t call Christmas “Fruitcake Day.”

We don’t call Easter “Ham and Lamb Day.”

Anyway, that’s probably just me, but it does get on my nerves.

Let’s close out by talking about Black Friday.

Either you love it or you hate it.

If you want to get up at 2 a.m., put on your best pajamas and fight everyone at Walton’s House of Pain for a $3 flat screen, you go right ahead.

That’s your prerogative. But you won’t see me.

And there you have it.

In closing, I truly am thankful for you for putting up with my weekly silliness. And I hope you and yours have a Happy Thanksgiving.