Thanksgiving

“I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.”

-Jon Stewart

That time of year is coming up again.  You spend time with your relatives around a table, a giant cooked turkey in the middle, being thankful for what you have; and going Black Friday shopping to get all of the deals, hoping that you won’t get trampled to death by doing so.  My favorite part of this holiday is going to a store in early to mid November and seeing the Christmas decorations already out.  Not even four days after Halloween has ended, and Thanksgiving hasn’t arrived yet, you’ll walk into Walmart and see stockings, snowmen, and candy canes.  It’s very irritating to see that they don’t have any Thanksgiving decorations out, but humorous that they’re anticipating Christmas so soon.

Along with Thanksgiving, like most other holidays, comes controversy.  Normally, the controversy is based around the Pilgrims and Indians, and whether Thanksgiving should be a holiday or not.  This year, however, I saw an article on PETA’s controversial ad targeting children as their main audience.  As a member of PETA, though not a vegan or vegetarian, I do support some of their ideas; this one, I do not.  A child cannot understand the idea of vegetarianism, or what ‘going vegan’ means.  Is it really expected that a child will sit at the dinner table, holding a picket sign, protesting against eating turkey? “Birds are friends, not food.”  Why target this audience? It’s a holiday to be ‘thankful’ for, hence the name, and children love it just as much as the adults do.

Celebrating Thanksgiving may or may not be important to you, but it’s good to remember that to some, this holiday is a tradition.  Believe what you will, have your own opinion, but please don’t ruin it for anyone else.  To those who are going home to see their families, eat turkey (or a vegetarian alternative), and spend time being thankful:  Happy Thanksgiving! : )  What are you thankful for?

(Photo by Aaron Woehler, curtosey of stock.xchng)