Reckoning with Thanksgiving

I hate Thanksgiving. I talk about it every year, I know. It's never been my thing. I have never liked the American holiday, even long before I knew about the horrific history of our nation and the truth of the "first Thanksgiving," I just wasn't a fan and have never been a fan. I'm mostly going to talk about myself and my personal history with this day, but I'll get to the bigger picture stuff too, I promise. 

When I was a kid, there were only a handful of Thanksgivings that I actually enjoyed and that's because we spent them at other family members' houses (mostly my cousin Lindsey's house), but the ones we spent at home, with just my nuclear family, well those were hell.  

My mom (my adoptive mom for those getting confused) generated chaos around her to feed off of and that generally came at my expense, but even when she wasn't looking for someone to pick on, she'd refuse to let us help her cook and then she'd procrastinate cooking all day and we'd often end up eating, finally, at like 11pm (no exaggeration), with my dad angry and me crying and all of us starving and my mom blaming it all on the two of us and it was just a miserable time and she looooooooved that. Starting fights was her whole goal. So being trapped in a house all day with her was always hell - hence why I generally loathe family holidays. 

There's not even really the food to look forward to. I've never liked Thanksgiving food (maybe because I relate it to the trauma, but still). My dad would make me boxed Mac and Cheese when I was really young, just so I could eat and now we make a fancier version for me and that's nice at least. The only other thing I like is the potatoes. Everything else is just meh. 

Then, when I got older, I started working retail and you can guess what that meant: overworking, stress, and terrible customers. I remember a few years in a row, living and working retail in Los Angeles, setting the store for Black Friday late on the Wednesday prior and leaving at like 1am then driving the 2 hours to my parents' house in the desert (because skipping Thanksgiving wasn't an option), having a typical terrible Thanksgiving at home, then leaving in the middle of the night to drive the 2 hours back to LA and open the store at 6am and then work one of the worst retail days of the year. That's honestly emotional and physical torture.

The first year I didn't hate Thanksgiving was when I was 28 and had finally chosen to go no-contact with my mom, had my first office job ever, and went to my cousin's house for a very small and mellow holiday and, even though the day itself was (and still is) a trauma trigger, spending it without the outside stress and with people who love me was an immense relief. I did that the next year too, before I moved to Oregon from California. 

I spent the next couple of holidays by myself, which was fine, especially because, at 30, I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease, a Thanksgiving nightmare. I mean that literally: it's a nightmare.

Then I met my husband and we spent just under a decade rotating family members' houses for the day and, honestly, there was only one year in there that I didn't get sick, because,  despite the various hosts' commitment to my safety, nobody understands cross contamination AT ALL (and I never told the hosts that I got sick because I didn't want them to feel badly). 

The one year I didn't get sick was when my MIL did everything GF and that was incredible. There were a couple of years I tried just bringing my own food, but that just offended the people who were trying to consider me (while I watched them unwittingly cross contaminate my GF food right in front of me). So it was a choice between getting sick and causing offense and the abused child people pleaser in me usually just panicked and chose sickness while trying not to hyperventilate. I'd spend the day in terror, every single time. I realize some of that is due to my lack of assertiveness, but it's the story nonetheless. 

And, looking back, I was sick those earlier (pre-diagnosis) Thanksgivings too, but I didn't notice because I was always sick every day of the year, because I was undiagnosed, just living my life malnourished. 

Honestly, I'd rather nobody worry about it and just let me eat my own personal food because there's no way I expect everyone at the table to understand how very hard it is to feed me. I don't want to cause a fuss and I don't even really want to eat there, but I have to because of this tradition that I've never even liked. 

At some point, I have to consider my body. Let me rephrase that: I should have been considering my body all this time and will unapologetically set that boundary going forward. 

It's not just getting sick for one day or a couple days; it's an autoimmune disease and, every time I get sick, it can hurt my long-term health and put me at risk for a host of other illnesses. People only seem to respect allergies, but this is, in a lot of ways, harder to live with than allergies (I say as someone ALSO born with food allergies) because it harms me long-term. 

Then 2020 came and, as everyone lamented not spending the day with their families, I was happy to be able to be at home with my husband, eating safely (both in regards to gluten and to Covid) with no dram and no stress and it was lovely. My husband really loves the traditional food so we did it all and I'm happy to do that for him as long as I'm safe. It was such a relief. 

This year, we're hosting just two people over at our house (both for Covid safety and my sanity) and everything will be GF. Am I stressed and fighting the old triggers? YEP. Am I struggling with my mental health? Hell yes, but if I have to do it, I'd prefer to do it in a way that I feel the most safe and that I can control. 

But I'm not doing any of it for me, if I'm honest. I'm not resentful of that at all; I choose to support this thing my husband loves to do, but I could take it or leave it. I do think it would be one thing if he was all like,  AMERICA FUCK YEAH PILGRIMS THANKSGIVING AMERICA TRADITION...okay I couldn't even finish that. My point is my hubs is NOT like that (and we wouldn't be together if he was) and he does recognize the highly problematic history of the holiday and he simply enjoys the food and family togetherness and I personally don't think there's anything wrong with that as long as you acknowledge the truth of it and are actively working to educate yourself and others. 

So here comes my annual acknowledgement that the Thanksgiving holiday is built on a lie and is actually the celebration of a massacre and the start of centuries-long oppression and genocide of the people indigenous to this land. For many of those people, Thanksgiving is a day of mourning, not a day of thanks and I think that white people "giving thanks" for being American today is tantamount to being thankful for genocide. I think it's okay to practice gratitude, but be aware of the implications of what you're grateful for. 

But don't take it from me, listen to these indigenous TikTok creators (Blogger is terrible with embedded videos, so click on the screenshots to open vids in a new window. You do not need to join  TikTok to watch):