Turkeys on Facebook

Why write a Thanksgiving post? Because there is no single place in America you can go to escape persistent reminders of the upcoming slew of holidays, not even the Facebook Observer. And isn’t that really so comforting?

If you’re reading this in another country, let me give you a brief history of Thanksgiving, the first in the string of winter holidays. (Unless you count my fella’s birthday on the 20^th, but you probably don’t.) Thanksgiving is the commemoration of a legendary meal in which the first white settlers in America sat down to eat all the American Indians’ corn and meat and bread and stuff. The Indians were also allowed to take part, or so the legend tells us, but after dinner the colonists got all the peach pie and forced the Indians to have smallpox for dessert.

That is one view, anyway, and it’s shared by some Facebook groups. For example, Happy Thanklesstaking! is working to remind people about the reality of the Native American situation, and they also bring us this wonderful little picture:

The group encourages members to make a donation to one of several Native American groups, rather than spending a ton of money on a force-fed bird and canned cranberry sauce.

This is very admirable, but you can’t ignore that Thanksgiving in recent years is less about screwing the Indians and more about celebrating your family and friends, and taking time to be grateful for the good things in your life.  Also, eating a lot. There are any number of Thanksgiving countdowns (here, here and here, to name a few); hardcore eaters might use these to judge when they should begin fasting in preparation for the blowout.

A secondary, but still important, use for Thanksgiving is that it lets college kids go home and get Mom to do their laundry. I am not in college, and actually have a washer/dryer one floor away from me, yet still I sometimes make my mom do my laundry on this hallowed weekend. Traditions are important. If you’re down to your last stack of whites and getting desperate, you might try Rides Home For Thanksgiving Break! which is exactly what it sounds like. Not a lot of people are using this, it seems, but the more people who sign up, the better chance you’ve got of finding your ride, so tell your friends to tell their friends.

If you don’t need any of this, but you miss making silly Thanksgiving-related art projects like you did in grammar school — well, you can still trace your hand and make it into a turkey, but if you want something higher-tech you can check out the Thanksgiving icons.

The only thing I can’t find is an application to organize my cooking process. This is maybe not that surprising giving Facebook’s demographic, but I would still love to see something that lets you organize your shopping and cooking in the days leading up to T-day. If anyone has seen something like this, leave it in the comments and I just might use it next year.

Like This Post? Subscribe to Our RSS Feed and Never Miss Another Post!