Happy Thanksgiving is overrated as holiday greetings go. I’d take bah humbug any day over Happy Thanksgiving. Nobody expects anything in return for bah humbug. Maybe people don’t expect you to reciprocate their Happy Thanksgivings. Or maybe they do. Either way they’re glory hogs, and theirs is a cheap glory.
If you really don’t expect reciprocity, you must realize the possibility that some people don’t want to say Happy Thanksgiving back, which means they probably don’t want to hear it from you in the first place, so by saying it, you’re being a dick. If, on the other hand, you’re actually fishing for return Happy Thanksgivings, you’re basically fishing with dynamite. By contrast, imagine the one who gets a room full of people to belt out a chorus of hearty bah humbugs as they cheers and clink glasses. Theirs is a genuine triumph. Happy Thanksgiving is a bully dressed in beggar’s clothes. Bah humbug is David toppling Goliath.
Don’t think that I’m envious of others who are able to appreciate their good fortune more than I am. I wouldn’t begrudge anyone their happiness. Go ahead and be happy. Just don’t lie about it and expect me to cheer you for it. Happy Thanksgiving and all the professions of gratitude that go with it are mostly just self-indulgence.
If you’re going to act like you’re so full of gratitude that the problems in your life cease to affect you, I really don’t want to be around you. If you really need to tell me how grateful you are, first tell me what you’re pissed off about, and atrocities you actually know nothing about happening all over the world don’t count. Give me a peek at some of the first-world problems that plague your pathetic little life – the mother-in-law who openly tries to split you and your wife, the rats shacking up in your attic, the sudden injury to your beloved family dog. Tell me you didn’t do anything to deserve these things and that you resent the unfairness of them. Then, you can tell me that you’re grateful – for the wife who stays with you despite her crazy mother, the exterminator who accepts your money in exchange for killing rats, the dog who loves you through her suffering – and I might believe your gratitude isn’t bragging entitlement in disguise. If you want to celebrate Thanksgiving without being a smug asshole, you have to celebrate Fucksgiving first.
The end of Halloween seems like a good time to start the Fucksgiving season. The days are getting shorter, which means the kids are spending more time inside; the weather’s getting colder, which means the rats and the seasonal cold and flu bugs are looking for ways into your house; and the smuggest holiday of the year is just a few weeks away. What better time to look around and say to yourself, “fuck.”
Fucksgiving came early for me this year. It started with a PA at the ENT office recommending a neti pot for my sinus infection and complaining that she “felt like I wanted her to be some kind of miracle worker” when I asked whether to continue taking cold meds. It continued with the kids running around the house screaming while I attempted to rest in the days leading up to Halloween. It really kicked into high gear when I came home early from the trick-or-treating loop with the kids, and, as I entered through the back door, was greeted by the senior dog, snorting her breath at me in excitement, looking as happy as could be, and limping severely. With the aroma of Italian sausage hanging thickly in the air, an intermittent stream of trick-or-treaters coming up to the front door, and the indignity of not being invited on a family walk all weighing mightily on her dog-sized brain, Sammy had somehow spazzed out and injured her right elbow. Perfect timing, since our friends the Farmers were due for a weekend visit with their new puppy, which was also perfect timing, because it turns out we need to address a rat problem in our attic. Fuck.
Now, before you start judging me, let me just assure you – I know that these are all first-world problems. They still suck, though, and not acknowledging that would be a mistake. I wouldn’t be very good at taking care of a dog if I wasn’t bothered by it getting injured. If when confronted by my dog’s sudden lameness, I thought, “Oh, I see that my beloved pet is in pain, but I’m just so grateful for all the things I have that I’m not sad or angry,” I think that would make me kind of an unfeeling piece of shit. If, when my kids tore around my house with no regard for the fact that they share it with their mother and me, I thought, “Oh, I’m so lucky,” I don’t think I’d be a very good parent. If, when I discovered a rat colony in my attic, I thought, “Bless these rats,” I don’t think I’d be a very good homeowner. I don’t have those thoughts, though. Instead, I think, “why the fuck did Sammy have to get hurt?” and “I’d really like to shut those kids up,” and “Fuck these rats.”
On Thanksgiving giving air to such thoughts is frowned upon, because I’m supposed to have perspective, but Fucksgiving is perspective’s daddy. I don’t have to minimize my frustration or remind myself how fortunate I am during Fucksgiving. I get to admit that I’m pissed off about my first-world problems and that I don’t deserve them. Then, I can concede that I don’t deserve all my first-world privilege . . . and actually mean it.
Denying your dissatisfaction with your wholly unearned life (your birth was total luck, preordained or not) is pure self-aggrandizement at the expense of enjoyment. That’s right – being kind of a whiny bitch during Fucksgiving makes you a humbler person who enjoys life more than your smug mother-in-law sipping prosecco and speaking out against oppression. That’s because if you really get into the spirit, you’ll realize that you don’t deserve any of the shit that’s happening to you, good, bad, or otherwise. You really don’t matter that much. Sure, you can make choices. You can go to school, get a job, work hard, get promoted, and make lots of money. Doesn’t mean that you deserve it. You can go out and murder a bunch of people and end up getting the electric chair too. Doesn’t mean you deserve it. Those people you murdered might have been holier-than-thou, prosecco-sipping, social-justice-buzzword-bleating “Happy Thanksgivingers.” The bottom line is that you’re an insignificant little shit no matter what, and if you think you can judge what people deserve, you’re a smug fuck. None of us deserve anything, and the surest route to understanding that fact is recognizing first that we don’t deserve the random bad stuff. Rage at your pathetic struggle during Fucksgiving. Then, you’ll be better able to appreciate your smallness in comparison to life’s many gifts when Thanksgiving comes.
After fantasizing about physically imposing my will to shut the kids up while I was sick and allowing for the fact that their aggravating behavior is not all my fault, my perception of their incredible development fills me with appreciation for how lucky I am. After Halloween, we had parent-teacher conferences. Cartter’s teacher gushed that he is “perfection.” He’s the top reading and math student in his class. She wants to know how she can have kids who turn out like him. Scotty’s kindergarten teacher had nothing but praise to offer during our sit-down with her, laughing that Scotty is “particular” about his work as she flipped through his journal full of drawings.
Of course, it’s tempting to pat ourselves on the back when our kids get good reviews at school, to think, “Oh, we’re the best parents. Look how well we’re doing. I’m so grateful for me.” It’s a lot harder to think that when you’ve already allowed that their behavior isn’t all up to you, and that’s a good thing for your appreciation and enjoyment. I see Cartter spending his free time reading voluntarily, laughing to himself as he peruses a comic, and I’m amazed. The kid is so advanced that he writes his own stories, and they’re actually good. He’s seven. Game night has returned with the dwindling daylight hours and the resulting disappearance of our evening walks, and Cartter has learned to play gin. He hides his cards on a chair behind him because he can’t hold ten cards in his hand. He’s already nearly as good as I am at the game, though. His aptitude to learn and strategize astounds me, but when we play fishbowl, a memory game with a bank of words drawn from a hat in three successive rounds, Scotty outshines him.
Scotty doesn’t care about strategy and games. He’s into the social scene at his kindergarten, often explaining to me on our rides home the complex dynamics between various kindergarten cliques in his class. He apparently belongs to all of them. He’s more musical than his brother. He’s mastered the F sharp pentatonic scale on my electric keyboard and enjoys playing it over the built-in bass and drum loop. He calls the resulting tune, “Black Stallion,” because it’s played on all black keys. I see these behaviors, and I expect to wake up and realize that it’s all just a dream. Just like I don’t deserve their bullshit whining and disrespect, I can’t take credit for the absolute miracle of their development. My kids are amazing, and I say that with fear and awe, because I know I don’t deserve it.
Thanksgiving and Fucksgiving are two sides to the same coin. You can’t have one without the other. I’m fucking upset that my senior dog is hurt. It isn’t right, but when I look back on the time that she’s been with us, I have to admit that it’s been better than I ever could have asked for. I’m irritated by the kids’ daily fighting, but I’m humbled by the miracle of their flourishing personalities and their growth. Sure, I’m doing my damnedest to nurture it, but I’m lucky as hell that I get to do that, and bitching about how annoying they are is necessary to understanding my good fortune.
After our friends the Farmers came and went with their puppy and two kids, Danyelle found some old videos of the boys and Sammy, and we felt the weight of our blessings as we watched them together. I’m so sad that those times are gone, the kids crawling on the floor with the dog while Danyelle and I sit and laugh at them, but I’m so grateful that we’ve made it to where we are. Soon, we’ll look back, and we won’t have little kids; we won’t be dressing up like Pokémon for Halloween; and our senior dog will be gone. It’s a painful prospect, and it’s a gift all at once, not anything that I deserve. It’s enough to make me want to celebrate with passersby in the street, people who have first-world problems like I do, people who could use a reminder of our fortunate circumstances. It’s enough to make me overcome my social anxiety about holiday greetings and move me to wave, gently smile, and say with all the cheer and sincerity that I can muster, “Happy Fucksgiving.”
The Raging Elitist 