Weekend Column – Losing Thanks
Bacchus was the god of agriculture and wine in ancient Roman times.
By ancient, I mean 2,000 years ago, give or take a century. For those into all that mythology, his Greek counterpart was Dionysus. Bacchus was the son of Jupiter (Greek Zeus) and a mortal, Semele.
And you probably now know more about Greek/Roman gods in two paragraphs than you remember from that class back in college.
Bacchus got a bad rap by a lot of ancient philosophers because his “parties” would sometimes get out of hand. Being the god of wine and food, that’s to be somewhat expected. The term “gluttony” comes into play when one recalls the Feast of Bacchus.
Today, we call it Thanksgiving.
I feel sorry for Thanksgiving, it just seems like it has lost its way. Thanksgiving, for you zen masters, has lost its path.
It used to be a time when all the kids and relatives would come together. The kids were off somewhere at college, and regardless of where you lived, the questions were always the same:
What’s your major? Is that really a major? What kind of job are you going to be able to get with that major? How are your grades?
After graduation, the only question asked was whether you had a job. And you would spend an absurd amount of time trying to explain exactly what is was you did and that, yes, it really was a job, and yes, you really did get paid for doing whatever is was you did. As you got older, the next question was about when were you going to get married. The final question was, “When do I get to have grandkids?”
For years, the Little Black Dress and I would spend countless hours, like everyone else, preparing the big feast. I would make andouille sausage stuffing. And I mean make it. Chop up all the veggies, go all over town trying to find real cajun andouille, make my own bread crumbs. All from scratch.
And we’d finally sit at the table and gorge ourselves. And it was awesome. And after pushing away from the table we’d walk into the kitchen and stare at the myriad of dirty pots and pans and dishes and glasses and flatware that had grown exponentially around the sink and go “ugh.”
Something is out of whack when it takes longer to clean up than to eat. And that includes having seconds and sometimes thirds.
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This year we decided to go another route. We ordered a smoked turkey. We made our sausage stuffing from a box with a little help from Jimmy Dean and some hot spices. We made instant mashed potatoes, adding scallions and cheese. It was all fantastic.
The best part? It took minutes to make and little time to cleanup. Which, in turn, meant we could get to naptime quicker.
We did the annual “go around the table and say what you’re thankful for” routine. That will never change.
Because that’s what Thanksgiving is about, or at least is supposed to be about. We are thankful for our spouses, kids, extended family and friends.
Everything else falls under what I call “stuff.” The house, the car, the clothes, the books, the games, the computers, the televisions, the computer games … the stuff.
And everyone will smile and hug. And millions of us will jump in the car, leaving all those people we are thankful for. Or go to bed early so we can wake up at some obscene time.
Why?
To be the first in line to get more stuff. It’s Brown Thursday or Black Friday or Red Saturday or whatever.
Thanksgiving is losing its thanks.
Until next time.
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