Holy Days and Pepper Sprays

I was off Thanksgiving, and though I often volunteer to work it, I took it off. I made Peryton and me oven baked "fried" chicken, peppery Brussels sprouts and cheapo macaroni and cheese. I found some some pecan pie for desert. All in all, I rather enjoyed the little holiday meal. I felt kind of rebellious, which always kind of satisfies me to begin with, but this was something different. The meal was fancy for us, as in we didn't order out, but instead cooked at home. But at the same time, besides the desert (we don't do a lot of pie), it was nothing specially bought for the occasion. The meal and the concurrent viewing of Ralph Bakshi's Fire and Ice, was quite a bit of fun and somehow "spiritually" satisfying.

Neither of us got on the phone and pined for old times with relatives. We certainly didn't start an itemized list of what we should be thankful for. We were thankful for a chance to have dinner together on a Thursday without either of us having to go to work that day. We didn't say it aloud, but it showed.

Of course, I over thought things, I wanted to walk over to my FacetuBe account on my laptop and post something like, "Christians, celebrated this Thanksgiving like our Founding fathers! Fast for three days every couple of months!" But most people probably don't realize that the tale of the "first Thanksgiving with the Indians and pilgrims" was something made in 1905. So I thought of a subtler joke to poke fun the event going on around me instead. That said, this year, I start the "High Season" of the winter with a new perspective on collective behavior as well as my usual axe to grind against Christianity during the Christmas days.

Santa Claus and private gift giving events became part of the Christmas tradition in English-speaking cultures a little before American Civil War, when wealthier folk got tired of poorier drunken rabble swinging by their houses to sing to them with carols. Ads were placed in papers, and mildly talented poets were featured like authors of Harry Potter books to get this tradition started. And this year, as the #Occupy movements with their rather anti-Capitalistic notions have stirred up trouble while pointing out alternately that park regulations are better enforced than banking and investment law and pepper spray is food product, Christmas shopping started at 4pm on Thanksgiving day in some places.

My instinctual distrust of mass movements, seems to be borne out in reports that I read that evening and the next morning. True to form, some idiot fully involved in the absurdity of of the Holy Days pepper sprayed a group of people during this "new shopping craze." And others were trampled, while even dead people were stepped over during this festival of purchasing. Security forces and police seem to have been busy elsewhere, letting people live their lives as they fit it seems as long as it's inside a Walmart.

I can't wait for my big turkey feast day next Memorial Day or Arbor day now.