The clan gathered yesterday to give thanks. Irish Americans, Korean Americans, Asian Indian Americans. Old folks, young kids. The younguns helped whip up four different flavored whipped creams for the pies and cheesecake. Rob kidoed, spoke the prayer. We inhaled turkey, kimchi, goat. We laughed, drank, ate and laughed some more. We gave thanks.
America gathered last night, at the entrances to malls, stores, shopping centers, large and small. America gathered to snatch, grab, yank, shove, take, get, punch and pepper spray the competition, in a turbulent paen to consumerism elevated to the status of National Holiday of the First Order.
Bleak Friday has replaced Thanksgiving. You don't ever see ads or announcements celebrating the simple warmth of family, gathered in the enveloping joy of deeper things. Starting in August we've been treated to the siren announcements of garish holiday displays, luring, enticing, enchanting, inviting, drawing us into the perfect maelstrom of a Daffy Duckish mine mine mine moment.
We ended our gathering yesterday full, content in the goodness of our enduring familial bonds, and the joys of all those F words: Family, Friends, Food, Football, Fun, Fantastic Flatulence.
America ended Bleak Friday with stuff.
