Thanksgiving

It comes once a year, the final Thursday of November. It's a federal holiday but it is also one deeply ingrained in to American culture. It's the apparent day when the pilgrims ate with the Indians they would later oust after barely surviving. It's been known as "Turkey Day" or "Thanksgiving". I suppose it is a shame to say that for me it is something to dread, a burden to bear.

First, I hate the food. I'm a seafood/steak/expensive meals kind of girl. I like spicy, exotic things like Indian food and gumbo. Thanksgiving food offers nothing for me. Usually I eat a meal consisting of turkey, mashed potatoes and rolls. While the rolls are quite tasty coming from the oven, I am only permitted to eat two of them and thus am unable to have a full meal based off of it. Mashed potatoes and turkey are not terrible certainly but quite bland. My family always ends up with the leftovers, which end up tasting worse than the original meal itself.

Then there's that whole retrieval of the meal. There's so many people in our kitchen all at once and I get claustrophobic from it all. Then there's the waiting. Even though I don't like most of the stuff at Thanksgiving, I'm still hungry at that point but usually I have to end up waiting forever. Then my mom feels the need to segregate the kids from the adults and I always end up relating better to the adults than I do to my sister and my cousin.

Then there is all of the people just being there. We have quite a lot of people who come over for Thanksgiving and they all come over my house. I don't mind my family one-on-one but all together they make me quite uncomfortable. They all seem to come over in a flood and take over my house. I have to deal with this flood of Puerto Rican woman affection, which is smothering alone but all at once... Ah. Usually I do my best to retreat but they can be quite loud. The sound gives me a headache sometimes and it makes me feel smothered.

At least with Christmas, I have presents to look forward to. That sounds terribly materialistic, but it's true. I do quite enjoy getting gifts and the thought makes me look forward to it. Just the thought of presents alone, I am able to bear all of the other things that go with it. With Thanksgiving, I have no such thing to look forward to. All I can do is grin and bear it.

Thanksgiving gives me such an icky feeling. I know that probably sounds terrible but it's true. There's just so much hassle and it's just awkward for me. My mother says that I'm not alone in that but still. It's not like my relatives are horrible (occasionally obnoxious but not intentionally mean or anything like that) but they just are overwhelming all at once.

Oh well, it's only a few hours. My therapist (the one who is supposed to help with my G.A.D. though I don't really know what she's doing yet) gave me a few tips and I hope they work.

I don't know. Just hope for the best for me. For the rest of you, Happy Thanksgiving and I hope you like it better than I do!