No, Thanksgiving!
(Photo: Google Images Creative Commons license search)
by Camryn Tuor, staff writer
Thanksgiving sucks. Let’s be honest, the only people who like Thanksgiving are those who like their family. Not to say I don't enjoy my family's presence, but sitting at a crowded table hearing all of their opinions at once is exhausting. Apart from the incredible food we pass around the table, this holiday is boring and unnecessary.
There are so many cons to this despicable holiday that the one pro is irrelevant. The tragic history of the day and the anguish the natives went through are just wrong.
The only thing that is so good about Thanksgiving is the food, but even so many delicious varieties of tastes are not enough to save it. We could have this feast any day. Why make it associated with the racist beginnings of America and the cruel ways the natives were treated on their own land? Why don't we just move this big meal to St. Patrick’s day or make it a Halloween dinner?
I wanted to know if other people agree with me. The backlash I got looking for allies at Maria Carrillo High School was immense. People who like Thanksgiving really like Thanksgiving, so the question is why. What is so special about filling your guts with carbs surrounded by your distant family? Do people really not see what is wrong about this? Do they not know how English colonizers made and broke agreements with natives, how they caused many of their deaths by passing diseases to them and eventually by even warring against them? This foul play is hard to look past, so why do people still appreciate this holiday?
Junior Samarah Ochoa had a lot to say on the topic of hating Thanksgiving, thankfully. She very much agrees with me that “Thanksgiving is not about family; it is about the food.” Her favorite side is mashed potatoes, but she enjoys the other traditional offerings as well. Ochoa said, however, she thinks that it is wrong to celebrate such a racist holiday and that we should change it. Ochoa added, “I often forget that Thanksgiving exists except for the break that we get.”
So who really likes this thing? Junior Peter Burroughs says Thanksgiving is one of his favorite holidays. He enjoys seeing distant families and eating the food they bring. When asked about the questionable origins of this holiday, Burroughs said, “I understand, yet I see the holiday as a time to come together and celebrate family.”
If you have a close family bond, it might be nice, I guess. It is not that I don’t have a good family, bonded and all, it is just that I do not enjoy being bombarded with questions the one day a year my extended family is forced to talk to me. I am the youngest, so it is hard to connect with my older cousins and some of my aunts and uncles.
My worst Thanksgiving was probably one year when I was in third grade and I dropped the mashed potatoes on the floor. Dish and all. Everyone was disappointed in me, and I felt so bad because there were glass shards everywhere. I will say that compared to the 1991 Thanksgiving horror story of Omaima Nelson, who murdered her much older husband Bill and chopped up his body to stuff into the freezer, my tale doesn’t seem too bad—but I digress. If you still like Thanksgiving, take the misfortune of Bill Nelson as a cautionary tale.
There are so many cons to this despicable holiday that the one pro is irrelevant. The tragic history of the day and the anguish the natives went through are just wrong. And I hope, after reading this, that maybe at least a few more people out there will think what I’m thinking the next time Thanksgiving rolls around: I’d rather pass.