Thanksgiving....Turkey, Stuffing, Potatoes......Kugel??

If you watch cable news, or read almost any website that's not about quilting, (Although some of those "quilters" can be regular bullies) you'd think we are a deeply divided society.  However, there are a few things that we still share as a nation.  No, it's not obesity, (I always secretly fear that when they show fat people in news features about fat people, that they were actually filming me, but just putting that little black stripe across my eyes to protect my anonymity)

I'm almost positive I don't have a coat like that...almost.

it's Thanksgiving...of course!  It is probably the most shared and celebrated holiday in America.  It really is the perfect holiday.  It combines all of the things I hold dear.

1. Well of course first there's the food.  So, so much of it.  I have a really large pair of jeans all picked out already.  Belt...Optional!! (To be said in a flamboyant way)
2. Football!! (Not to be said in a flamboyant way)  The Lions, the Cowboys, and whoever plays at night.  
3. No Gifts!  Other than bringing a bottle of wine or something to somebodies' house, you don't owe anybody a damn thing.
4. No Religious Obligation - You can give thanks, but you can do it from the comfort of the dining room table.  And if you don't feel like saying grace, you can start eye-balling the good pieces of turkey, or the crispy piece with the most marsh-mellows of the sweet-potato pie while everybody else is genuflecting, or self-flagellating, 
5. Oh, and a family, yeah, yeah, that goes without saying...right?

My memories of Thanksgiving take me back to good old North Massapequa, where as a child I would wake up and out of some form of guilt, I would watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Unlike most kids, I hated parades.  Maybe it's because they showed us all of those scary Nazi parades in Hebrew School, but I've always found them grossly overrated.   It was here where I would watch Broadway stars lip-sing and dance to whatever horrible show-tune that was sweeping the "Great white-way", all the time waiting for one of those damn floats to go by so Willard Scott could say with faux enthusiasm, "Look everybody, it's Underdog, bad guys everywhere take heed"!

Eventually I would tire of this and turn to Channel 11, WPIX and watch "King Kong", the original!  It just wasn't Thanksgiving until the "big guy" fondled Fay Wray, the little hussy.

Easy....big fella

When that ended, (Spoiler alert, the ape loses) it was "March of the Wooden Soldiers" with Laurel and Hardy. Silas Barnaby, the Boogiemen, scary stuff.  By this time it was almost noon, and it was  time to watch the hapless Lions lose another meaningless game.

Sometimes we would have to drive into the "city" to see my aunts and uncles, or  head off to Queens to see my brother who had moved out and gotten married by what seemed like the age of 15.  Traffic was to my father as "Tic-Tacs" are to ballet dancers. (A caloric splurge they simply can't afford)  He would do anything possible and perhaps a few things humanly impossible to avoid it.  My father's theory about defeating traffic was simple.  "As long as you're moving".  "But Dad, we are going to Queens, and we just past a sign for Niagara Falls".  Didn't matter, we were moving.  If you've ever taken Merrick Road to Queens....well then you're out of your gourd, just like my father.

When you get a little older, you learn that one of the best parts of Thanksgiving is the Wednesday night before, especially when you are returning home from college.  It's the first time you get to come home and see your High School friends, and hang out at your old watering holes.  It also means that you don't necessarily wake up in time for the "Parade" unless you want to have a pounding headache all day.

I didn't really hang out there 'cause I would have probably gotten my ass-kicked!

As an adult, I figured that my Thanksgiving Day Parade watching days were over.  Little did I know I'd have children who'd want to go.  We actually got to see some celebrities up close.  We saw Hannah Montana, (I told that Judge that a 100 yard restraining order wouldn't stop me) and "Steve" from "Blue's Clues".  In fact, due to parade traffic, his float got stuck right in front of us.  He waved for a while, and then he seemed to tire of the whole thing.  Mostly it was cold and there was no where to pee.  From now on, the only parades I'm going to watch are the North Korean ones where they parade their missiles down "Lil Kim" boulevard for all to see and fear.
Who's the "Perv" who took this shot?

When I became a teacher in New York City, many of my students were first generation American.  I assumed that they would eat turkey and stuffing, and pumpkin pie, the usual suspects.  But instead, what I learned from these students who were from Jamaica, Haiti, Egypt, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam etc...was that they did eat turkey on Thanksgiving, but they also ate food from their own ethnic culture.  It was really America at its best, the melding of cultures, but still celebrating that most American of holidays.  I don't know why I was so surprised though.  My family had been serving "kugel" for as long as I could remember.  "Kugel", for those of you who aren't familiar is a fried concoction made up of mushrooms, onions, and something called "U-Need-a-Biscuits".  What are "U-Need-a-Biscuits" you ask?  Well, for starters they look like this:

The name comes from an early attempt by the National Biscuit Company to market their product so it stood out.  Hence the name "Uneeda", as in "You-Need-A", and while they were at it, they changed their name to the more palatable "Nabisco".  As for Kugel, it had mass and a density comparable to the ocean depths where the wreckage of the Titanic can be found.  I believe the formula could be calculated by C=MC2, or Cramps = movement/constipation to the 2nd power.  Kugel's look like this:
Soooo very dense!

Perhaps the best thing about Thanksgiving is that it begins the entire holiday season.  Once its Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Christmas, and New Year's are just around the corner.  Once it's Thanksgiving you can listen to Christmas music, you can eat as much as you want since the calories don't count, and you can watch all the good Christmas movies.  But best of all, you can take time to reflect on all you have in your life that you can truly be thankful for.  In another shared slice of Americana, many have found a way to demonstrate their thanks:
Black Friday!!!!