Today is Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S. That means that we are legally required to eat a lot of food, be grateful for every single thing in our lives even if we are miserable, and say "Happy Thanksgiving" to everyone we see. We are also required to hear the people on the news tell us that once again, it is the busiest travel day of the year and look! -- here is a family traveling with 18 children and their plane is delayed because of a storm and they've spent three days in the airport but they are happy and grateful nevertheless.
Then we get to listen to the sob stories (head-on collision of two cars that were going to grandma's house for dinner!!) and the food stories (grateful homeless people being served turkey dinners), and the stories of inspiration and hope (people who have lost their homes in a fire/hurricane/tornado but are happy anyway because God loves them and things will be better next Thanksgiving). Oh, and let's not forget about the turkey hotline and the people who call to ask if it is OK to eat the turkey if they forgot to turn on the oven.
We also need to tune into the food and health police, who always have important messages for us this time of year. It's OK to drool over and admire your Thanksgiving feast, it's just not OK to eat it. It's all bad for you -- full of fat, salt, sugar, carbs, antibiotics, caffeine, nicotine and who knows what else. If you eat one bite, you will explode and die. The healthy solution? Just bring your pitcher of filtered water to the table and drink all 8 of your requisite glasses while everyone else is pigging out. Make them all feel guilty and envious of your willpower. Make them feel even more guilty by announcing after dinner that you're going to do your 10-mile daily run, but you'll be back in 5 minutes. According to the health police, exercise is an absolute necessity on Thanksgiving Day; otherwise, osteoporosis will immediately set in.
Of course, I get to hear my all-time favorite annual story about Friday being the biggest shopping day of the year and how retailers are soooo worried that people won't be spending their designated amounts of money for gifts and how they might have to go out of business if store traffic doesn't pick up and that too many people are waiting until the last minute to shop but maybe it will be a good holiday shopping season after all but we'll have to wait and see and oh, by the way, we are happy and grateful.
Then we get to stuff ourselves and watch football.
Isn't Thanksgiving great!
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