Fakesgiving

While many of you gear up for Thanksgiving, we here in the Diva household are preparing for Fakesgiving festivities.

Fakesgiving is my favorite holiday. Born from those many, many, many Thanksgivings that didn’t exactly go the way I had planned, Fakesgiving was a perfect pre-cursor, do-over or post-apocalyptic event which is now often more highly anticipated than the real thing.

Let me explain.

Let’s just hypothetically say that your childhood traditional Thanksgiving dinners were often assembled along plastic tablecloth-lined banquet tables in a second cousin’s thrice-removed basement in which marshmallows (in either the salad, sweet potatoes, stuffing and gravy) were the main entree. In exchange for sitting quietly in tights and too-small Mary Jane’s, your mother would cook a second Thanksgiving meal later that evening so that leftovers would be more than an empty Jello mold and your Dad could have a goddamned turkey sandwich for Crissakes, why, that would be reason for Fakesgiving.

Or let’s just say--for argument’s sake--that one year your crazy aunt took a Japanese cooking class at the Y and made everyone sit on pillows on the floor while she served hand-rolled sushi and tofurkey stir fry. Again, a second, more traditional meal would be prepared the day after so your Dad could have a goddamned turkey sandwich for Crissakes.

Or how about that year when your Dad scored Lion’s tickets and your Mom thought maybe you should eat before the game so you wouldn’t need to eat that crappy stadium food, so at 8:00 Thursday morning you ate cranberry waffles and turkey bacon? After the inevitable loss sitting in traffic, your Mom would pretend that your car was a float in the Macy’s Day parade in the parking lot of the Silverdome, and promise a feast with all the trimmings that weekend so your Dad could have his goddamned turkey sandwich for Crissakes.

Or, again, let’s just pretend that maybe later in your life you found yourself at the table of your possible future in-laws for the first time, and realized, in horror, that creamed onions, turnips, and the giblets were their Thanksgiving staples and as you wondered if this relationship had any chance whatsoever with these huge cultural differences glaring between you like the sheen from an unmolded can of cranberry sauce, you appeased yourself with a second, more familiar dinner later that week so maybe you could ponder your future over a goddamned turkey sandwich for Crissakes. 

Or who can forget the year that you and your husband decided to do something different that year, and booked a family trip at Disney? You may have realized soon after arriving that you were not the first person to think of this particular activity, and not a single restaurant on property had availability until Groundhog’s Day. With an exhausted and whiny toddler you finally pushed the stroller up to Sonny’s Star Cafe at 10:40 at night for a cheeseburger since even the turkey leg stand in Frontierland ran out before noon, you then spun tales of lumpless gravy and pumpkin pie as soon as you got home and yes, your husband can get a goddamned turkey sandwich for Crissakes that doesn’t cost $24 and shaped in mouse ears.

As you can see, there are many reasons why Fakesgiving should be an important date on everyone’s calendar. It’s the day you, as the host and guest, get to decide mashed or scalloped, dressing or stuffing, canned or homemade, and best of all, who to invite without guilt or obligation.

So Happy Fakesgiving, friends. I am as grateful for you as my Dad is for that goddamned turkey sandwich for Crissakes.

This is also being cross-posted at SuburbanDiva.com as I attempt to breathe some life back into the column. Please feel free to sign up for newsletters over there so you won't miss a thing.