Drink Some Booze, Smoke a Joint and Relax: How to Have a Hedonistic Thanksgiving

[kpete]

Drink Some Booze, Smoke a Joint and Relax: How to Have a Hedonistic Thanksgiving

By Ben Reininga, Nerve.com. Posted November 25, 2009.

Thanksgiving is a holiday about three things: eating, drinking, and fun. If you haven't realized that yet, you're doing it wrong. Here's how to do it right.

You might not know this, but Thanksgiving is the best holiday of the year. You don't have to buy a gift for your most annoying family member or send your boss a cheese log. You don't have to pretend that the ten-year-old girl dressed up as Britney Spears is appropriate or deserving of a mini Snickers bar. You really don't have to fast. No, this is a holiday about three simple things: eating, drinking, and merriment.

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5. Showtime

Try to relax as you pull it all together. Open more wine, turn on the Macy's parade, and put out some brown and orange paper so everyone can trace their hands and make finger-turkeys. At 4:45 p.m., there were eight people in my living room, it was fifteen minutes before I promised them dinner, and I was going down like Captain Ahab. My white whale of a turkey was slowly roasting away, internal temperature still far shy of the safety-zone. My potatoes were un-mashed, the table's wasn't set, and my partner-in-crime had chosen that moment to have a heated phone conversation with her parents in Polish. An eclectic array of side-dishes sat awkwardly on the table.

This is when you need to remember that, above all else, this night should be fun. Do your friends want to go smoke a joint before the turkey comes out? Does the chef sort of need them to because the motherfucking turkey still isn't done? It's all good. Don't freak out if you're off-schedule. Just focus on getting the food done and making sure your guests have full cups of wine. Eventually the turkey will be done, and then all that's left is to eat, drink, and be merry. At family celebrations, you might go around the table and say what you're thankful for — a ritual I always found interminable — but we decided to do it differently. Instead of providing a gem of spiritual piety, we took turns telling our favorite anecdote from the year. Joanna made the great suggestion that we do this while we were eating, not before, which suited our hungry selves very well. Remember, you're running this show: feel free to mess with tradition.

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the rest:
http://www.alternet.org/story/144201/drink_some_booze%2C_smoke_a_joint_and_relax%3A_how_to_have_a_hedonistic_thanksgiving

[barbtries]

1. it's about family and fun

my mother, bless her soul, was a bit too far into the libations thingy. she also had a theory about cooking turkey: put a pound of butter on it, stick it in the oven, and forget about it. no basting. no stuffing. i was an adult before i learned that turkey did not have to be dry. anyhow, one year, my mother forgot one important step: to turn on the oven.

gawd we laughed and laughed and laughed, as we ate at about 9 pm that night. the potatoes were watery (i will never forget the hilarious sight of my brother, pouring his potatoes onto the plate), the gravy was practically solid, the cranberry sauce had begun to grow mold. but we had a terrific holiday.

i miss my family! got about two hours or so before i can get them on the phone...happy thanksgiving!

[sharp_stick]

2. I love memories like that

One year for Christmas my Grandmother, Mom and all the Aunts were "helping" in the kitchen; every last one of them salted the potatoes. Nobody tasted them until they were on the table and we all had a plateful. I don't know if my memory is right but I remember almost everyone taking a mouthful of them, covered with the gravy made from really salty potato water, at the exact same time. I'll never forget the look of horror on my Grandmothers face or the amount of laughing as everyone scraped them off plates. We had about 25 people usually and they had to make a pile of food, luckily we didn't miss the spuds that much.