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Saturday, November 17, 2007
Over-invited at Thanksgiving
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I understand how important Thanksgiving is to most people. No other holiday is more in keeping with America’s well-deserved reputation for being the most generous, hospitable country in the world.
That’s why I’m applying for temporary Canadian citizenship this Thursday.
Oh, c’mon! Anything’s got to be better than last Thanksgiving, when I wound up a fugitive in my own home. Trussed and stuffed into a “Butterballs Gone Bad” version of witness protection, my only hope was to lie low and keep completely quiet. One slip-up — a ringing telephone accidentally answered, a “Michael Bolton Sings Mambo” CD played slightly too loud — and my goose would be cooked. I’d suddenly find myself sitting beside obnoxious Uncle Elmo at some friend’s Thanksgiving table, quietly pushing the turkey around on my plate and plotting to drown myself in the gravy boat. Again.
Thanksgiving is duller than all-white meat on an all-white plate. The entire day revolves around a meal that takes about nine hours to prepare and less than 20 minutes to demolish. The menu is so unvarying that serving pumpkin pie without whipped cream qualifies for a CNN news alert. The conversation is almost entirely about eating; then, right after dessert, it abruptly shifts to how nobody’s ever eating anything again. But heaven forbid I not be there. And there. And there …
Since moving to Georgia in the 1990s, I’ve been barraged with Thanksgiving invitations. I suspect some well-meaning types are truly perplexed that I’m happily single and determined to show me the error of my ways by welcoming me into the bosom of their loving families for the day. I also suspect they haven’t spent as much “quality time” with Uncle Elmo as I have. Then too, food isn’t a big deal to me (I subsist mostly on peanut butter, potato chips and champagne, not necessarily in that order). So perhaps I represent an irresistible challenge.
For a long time, I reluctantly rotated my presence to a different house for Thanksgiving dinner each year. Maybe I’d stop by a second one for dessert. It wasn’t the ideal solution, but it worked well enough. Until that fateful Thanksgiving a few years back, when I realized that I’d been politely browbeaten into R.S.V.P.-ing “yes” to a 1 p.m. meal. And a 4 p.m. one. And not one, but two different ones, at 7 p.m.
When the whole misguided, yam-packed day finally ended — some 11 hours, four fully dressed turkeys and one Honeybaked Ham later — I vowed that as God was my witness, I’d never be so unhungry again. I was a successful, mature woman, and if I wanted to stay home all day in my jammies and watch a “Love Boat” marathon on cable, I could. All I had to do was state my case: boldly. Eloquently. Unapologetically.
How about you? If you’re single, how do you spend Thanksgiving? And how would you like to spend Thanksgiving?
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