Thursday, November 26, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a pretty complicated holiday.

It is possibly the only major holiday that commemorates a meal.  Not a birth, death, war, tragedy, victory, or miracle.  Just a meal.  An absurdly romanticized mythical version of a relatively insignificant event in a highly controversial period of American history.

Meanwhile, it is also a crucial inflection point in the annual economic cycle.  Black Friday exists only because Thanksgiving Thursday gives so many consumers a free Friday on which to shop before Christmas.

Meanwhile, it encourages the fattest population on the planet to eat even more than we usually do.

Meanwhile, it is stressful and expensive as everyone tries to travel on the same days and cook three-ovens-worth of meals in one oven with a suspect thermostat.

Meanwhile, it is Thanks-Giving, a day in which we are all reminded to consider what we are thankful for.  I'm thankful for a lot of things, and not least among them is the surge of positive energy that flowed today.

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