I suppose that as the holiday season gets into full gear on Friday, we'll start hearing the Usual Suspects (*cough* Billo *cough*) ranting about how liberals have declared War on Christmas, and how it's Patriotic and Christian to spend yourself into debt for the next year to celebrate the birth of a Jewish guy to a mother whose husband has to try to believe that she didn't have an affair.
If there is a War on Christmas, I would say it's being waged by the financial community and the automobile industry, with the help of the Bush Administration, but of course that will never fly with the Billos of the world, for whom Being Aggrieved and Oppressed as white Christian males has become a habit like picking at your fingers or checking the burners on the stove before leaving the house.
Of course, you couldn't tell there was a War on Christmas from the crowds at Kohl's in Ramsey, New Jersey yesterday, where people were filling up carts with sweaters, fleece, gloves, and hats. Nor could you tell at Marshall's, where the Gift Ideas!! of bath sets nobody will ever use and food baskets that make you wonder how old they are were piled high at the front of the store. I got out of Marshall's loaded down with a new set of sheets; a quilted throw for Mr. Brilliant to wrap himself in while we're watching TV because he's always cold, even when the thermostat is set to 72; and some kids' books for the company Tree Gifting for needy families. The tag I picked was age-appropriate books for a one-year-old boy, so I got a bunch of cute Boynton books, something with dinosaurs on it, and an adorable picture book of dogs with pull-out tabs that let you make a dog scratch, or shake its head after bathing. Alas, no tab that would make the dog poop, but you can't have everything.
All of this is, of course, leading up to the Big Thursday Turkey Feast. With my family members having headed south, Mr. Brilliant's father having passed to the Great Beyond, and me unwilling to spend perfectly good time off work sitting around airports, the Thanksgiving get-together is no longer an option. For years, Mr. Brilliant and I went out to dinner on Thanksgiving, feeling obligated to put down a Big Turkey Dinner™ long after we decided that to make a BTD for two was a waste of time and resources, especially since Mr. Brilliant does not like cranberries or sweet potatoes, which pretty much leaves you with a rather wan-looking white-and-tan dinner. But as the years have gone by, and turkey is now available at any time during the year, and you can get perfectly nice turkey breast slices at Trader Joe's if the spirit should move you to make a turkey dinner, the idea of the Thanksgiving turkey being a mandatory thing began to seem like something requiring rebellion. And after the last time we went to our local Nice Restaurant on Thanksgiving and the size zero waitress made a sarcastic crack about the two cookies that constituted my dessert: "You sure you have room for that?" I don't have to pay forty bucks so that some twenty-five-year-old who hasn't spent forty-five years fighting a losing battle with weight pick on me because I dare to eat a cookie and offend her delicate sensibilities.
So last year we decided to forgo spending a hundred bucks on a big dinner that left us feeling oogy for the rest of the day and just cook something nice at home. This year I am making Pastitso from a recipe given me years ago by a co-worker from her Greek mother-in-law's kitchen; along with a chopped salad of cucumber, tomato, red onion, bell pepper, olives and feta with a red wine vinaigrette dressing; and baklava from Trader Joe's.
After seven holiday seasons spent at my former job, I had finally succeeded in convincing my co-workers that Thanksgiving For Two wasn't a tragedy, that in face we actually liked it. I found at a recent departmental luncheon for two departing employees that I now have to go through this again -- convincing people that there are other ways to enjoy the holiday besides, as a commenter over at Firedoglake said, "the celebration of the genocide of native americans or the triumph of euro colonialism in the lands where the native indignous (sic) people lived for years."
Now, there's something to be said for debunking the myth about Thanskgiving that we are all taught from the time we traced our handprints in kindergarten and colored them in to look like turkeys. But today this country is in such a shambles that we just don't have the luxury right now of trying to debunk a holiday that represents for many a rare moment of joy and togetherness as dreary November draws to a close, giving way to the Festival o'Shopping to come and then the long, cold winter.
So now you know what we're doing at Casa la Brilliant on Thursday. Got any unusual traditions or dishes of your own that you're cooking this week? Spill 'em in the comments.
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