Tios, Turkey, and Time: Debriefing the Holidays

     I haven't always regarded thanksgiving as one of my favorite holidays, in fact I usually ranked it somewhere between labor day and Columbus day, towards the bottom of the list.  Due in part to the shortness of the time off and the inevitability of traveling chaos it scarcely graced my top five holidays as a child and really only now am I really beginning to appreciate it.  No, I haven't had a sudden sympathetic epiphany about pilgrims in a foreign land escaping persecution and taking it out on the locals.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that most pilgrims were assholes (read: abused natives/stole their country) and that the tale of the first thanksgiving were forged of selective memory and romanticism (read: made up).  That is precisely the point.  Whomever believes that a holiday must be a historically accurate reenactment of a symbolic event has a screw loose.  For Example / FYI : Jesus was probably not born in December.  The holidays, including thanksgiving are all about recognizing an ideal and celebrating in its name.  Whether it be a celebration of thanks, life, death, or sacrifice, the premise is the same.  It is not important that we give thanks for the same things the pilgrims gave thanks for, (turkeys, dead mean natives, gullible friendly natives, not having to resort to cannibalism two winters in a row), but that we recognize that we have something to be thankful for. 
     To make a long story long, having a thanksgiving without the headache of the consumer rush, the stress of travel have made me more thankful (ha) for the holiday.  I was so lucky as to be able to spend the week with my family whom I don't often see, meet new friends, and spend time with the originals.  It was truly a relaxing and refreshing experience.  I hope that you all had a good holiday or at the very least had enough time off to come up for air.

PS: Be thankful for the internet, your #1 resource for rants.