Hey! So, happy post-Thanksgiving and stuff!

I love Thanksgiving because it’s a reminder that we’re all immigrants, whether we had a choice in coming to America or not. Revelatory, I know! Those pale Puritans with the questionable outfits? Not natives. I’m pretty sure y’all knew that.

I’m one of these people who do the Ancestry DNA thing where you have to spit in a tube. It’s really funny seeing how all my ancestors came over to the Deep South at about the same time. My grandfather said that we were kicked out of Ireland for being horse thieves. I imagine the same story holds true for the rest of my immigrant family: we did some dumb sh!t and they shipped us off to America to get rid of us. Either that or we took a big old risk in coming here because we couldn’t hack it in Scotland or England, not being from the ruling class and so forth. I’m part of a legacy of people doing dumb sh!t, and America is full of that same dumb spirit. We got on the boat or we were kicked out for crimes. That same spirit fuels the need to submerge a bird in oil and light it on fire, which is why so many of us Americans burn their houses down on Thanksgiving day trying to deep-fry a Turducken.

In my house, we almost always have a Thanksgiving bloodletting. There’s a wound or a gash or a burn. This year, I squished my thumb trying to adjust my son’s kitchen stand so he could watch me rub a turkey with anchovies. I’m pretty sure he’s going to need therapy in his adulthood. “My first memory of my mother is her slathering fish paste over a giant, naked bird, then squashing her thumb and running off in pain. And that’s how I became a serial killer . . . ”

Earlier that day, we’d done some shopping, where Boychild picked out a lovely pair of tap shoes and a monster book for himself. I’m anticipating a lot of “heel, toe/ heel toe” action and possibly a “Shuffle Off to Buffalo” by Christmas. Will we sanely make it to Christmas with the tap, tap, tapping? It’s like The Raven in here.

Thanksgiving Day was cute. I was concerned that some of my glitter nail polish flaked off into the gravy, but no one complained. Yes, I am in my forties, and yes, I do love me some glitter polish. Boychild thought it was Christmas, so we had to remind him that it was the lesser holiday where we celebrate food and being together?!?! Ah, COVID, how you’ve effed with our traditions. I put on the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade, or what I thought was the parade because I was trying to stream it online, and it was SO WEIRD. It was so vacant. Let me clarify- it was literally vacant, not like it is every year, which is metaphorically vacant and literally vacuous and/ or vapid. There were no people there. I’d grown up watching the parade and I was used to seeing stacks of people, hundreds gathering along the parade route. No one was there. I began to cry at the shock of the empty streets (and hoo-boy, was I embarrassed about my emotions. I’m crying about a parade. Come on, girl.)

What will Boychild’s traditions be? What will make him cry when those traditions are seriously altered? Will there be a Macy’s in ten years? Five? It’s a changing landscape, but this is why we have traditions. Unfortunately, some of those traditions aren’t available this year. I miss the sh!t out of my mom. I haven’t seen her in about a year, and I just ache. My heart aches. I also miss hugs from women. My boys are fabulous, but I don’t think I’ve had a hug from a female friend in what, nine months? I miss, well, I clearly miss the crowds at parades, something I never thought I’d ever write. This year, I think my list of things I miss is almost as long as the list of things I’m thankful for (but not quite).

We’re facing such a weird and uncertain future; therefore, I am thankful this year for the security of traditions, even those traditions that involve dumb sh!t like eating a turducken and pretending that America isn’t responsible for the genocide of Native Americans. And I also hope that forgoing our traditions today lets us celebrate those traditions in the future.