Loosening the belt...

As I sit here gorging for the third day in a row on leftover stuffing (I love food that's named after what it is or does, like oranges and stuffing) I am happy to confirm that I am very much pro-Thanksgiving. Such a terrific holiday this year, with everything that could have gone wrong going right instead, and I got to spend two solid days with family and friends.

Each meal was wonderful, with everything tasting just as it should. And both my Thanksgiving dinners featured one of my all-time favorite dishes, butternut squash soup. Hot damn that is some good soup... Thursday I spent time up in Massachusetts with my best friend and his family and friends, which I don't get to do often enough, and Friday was a second Thanksgiving in New Jersey with family, our yearly event. No traffic to speak of marred the travel, and the company and conversation were wonderful all-around.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, both because it's a secular holiday that most Americans can get behind and also because it's a holiday based on and steeped in the act of hospitality. As some of you may remember from an earlier post, hospitality is very important to me and something I take very seriously. One of our most ancient rituals, the act of both giving and receiving food and shelter hearkens back to our most ancient and earliest civilizing practices. I love that we have a national tradition that originates with, and continues to be practiced as an expression of the act of welcoming others to your home and hearth.

Sure, I doubt the first Thanksgiving was anything like the sanitized version that is currently celebrated, but then as we all well know, faith doesn't require any historical accuracy. Those same pinko-commie liberals who are trying to ruin Christmas (an act of holiday sabotage I heartily approve of) would also have you believe that recognizing the reality of Pilgrim-Indian relations must by necessity mean feeling guilty each Thanksgiving, and I won't have any part of it. Thanksgiving is more than an origin myth, it now serves as a hearty reminder of what is truly important in life; a reminder we desperately need just before we launch into the greatest example of what's not important - the Christmas season.

The radio stations and stores let us know beyond all shadow of a doubt that the final barrier has been crossed, the seventh seal has been broken, and it's now the Christmas homestretch. The soundtrack of the season plays like George Bailey's ipod locked on permanent shuffle, so let the government-sanctioned marginalization of non-Christians begin!