SUDBURY, MA—Their forks clattering to the table mere moments after the 16-year-old’s sudden announcement, Thanksgiving guests at the Ross family dinner reportedly froze in disbelief Thursday after teenage son Ryan informed them of the genocide of Native Americans. “No, no, it can’t be! Not my precious holiday!” said mother Alexandra Ross, 47, one of several dumbfounded family members who at first listened in rapt amazement to the high school junior’s statement that the first Thanksgiving was nothing like what was taught in schools before breaking the silence by spitting out their mashed potatoes and turkey into their napkins and screaming at the top of their lungs. “This changes everything! Everything! What were we doing here gathered with your grandmother on a terrible day like this? Oh God, burn the tablecloth! Burn the little pilgrim figurine! Burn it all down!” At press time, family patriarch Jim Ross had proclaimed that he “couldn’t stand the horrible truth” before grabbing the carving knife and slitting his own throat from ear to ear in front of his stunned teenage son.
The left is rehabilitating Thanksgiving by recognizing that, even if its historic origins trace back to pilgrim shit, the national holiday was established to celebrate the defeat of the North over the South after the civil war, the end of chattel slavery and self-emancipation of black slaves from the institution.
Still some problematic context to work through but we can actually celebrate the spirit of the holiday while cherishing our friends and family.
Maybe we should just honor the actual creation of the holiday, which involved one woman pestering multiple presidents to create a national day of thanks since she felt our country was becoming too divided. (This was on the lead up to the Civil War, and ironically it was Lincoln that finally listened to her and made it a national holiday.)
That’s some sweet and relatable background in our current era! Adopting the strategy of pestering presidents in ways to make them listen to individual concerns may have been lost to time, and deserves to be celebrated