Thanksgiving is not for telling your angry uncle he’s wrong, it’s about loving him anyway
Gratitude leaves no room for haughtiness.
Around this time every year, coastal media trot out a series of articles “preparing” a very particular set of readers for encounters with opinions unlike their own, which says more about them than the subject of their writing, but anyway…
This year is no different, except for the fact that their attempts to normalize contentious Thanksgiving Dinner conversation are far less veiled than years past. Once upon a time, there was at least a pretense of impartiality. But this is 2018 and everything with which they disagree is abhorrent and at the very least, racist.
Like this gal:
No. I plan on watching football with my relatives and talk about normal things. https://t.co/hLN3wuSOge
— ????Thankful Ginger ???? (@mchastain81) November 21, 2018
Or this one from Eater:
In closing, the writer suggests it’s the cruelest injustice not to use Thanksgiving as an opportunity to tell your family they’re wrong:
The personal has always been political, and what happens in our homes has actual impact on the world outside them. Is there a better opportunity than this moment, when everyone is sharing a meal, to bring people together in a way that actually, honestly invites everyone to the table? If we are truly committed to justice for all, we have to create just spaces wherever we are. Our failure to translate private disapproval of bigotry into public protest, even at the dinner table, is an endorsement of immeasurable cruelty.
SPOILER: Not everything in life is political, nor has it been, nor should it be. Sure, bigotry is unacceptable, but when you define bigotry as someone who voted for or supports Trump, as most liberals do these days, you’ve lost me and about half the country.
And there’s the New York Times.
This one is my personal favorite. The NYT went so far as to create an Angry Uncle Bot which coaches user on how to respond to the proverbial angry uncle who never passes up an opportunity to discuss his politics in the brashest of terms during everyone’s favorite meal of the year.
Users are able to select their uncle’s political persuasion. And you would know that the conservative angry uncle is a complete ignoramus who speaks in hashtags (literally) while the progressive uncle is thoughtful and well spoken. Conversely, the liberal niece or nephew in this hypothetical is also far more polished and well-spoken than their conservative counterpart.
A look at the conservative angry uncle:
The bot does advise users to ask questions that are more personal and less overtly political, though still in the political vein.
And the liberal uncle:
In case it’s not obvious, you will seldom invoke a change of mind or heart by telling someone else how wrong they are. Change, true change, manifests through love and relationship, not judgment and condemnation.
Politics may be part of family gatherings, but contrary to the above-listed suggestions, should certainly not be the focus.
We are the only country in history privileged enough (in the actual sense of the word, not it’s modern perversion) to have an entire holiday devoted to intentional, mindful gratitude. It’s how Thanksgiving began is how it should remain — a celebration of our blessings, the love we’ve been given, and all the other bits that make this life a beautiful place.
According to Pilgrim Hall Museum, the first recorded Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1623. In the midst of a drought, the pilgrims humbled themselves in prayer. When the rains came that afternoon, they took time to give thanks.
Plymouth had been stricken with a severe drought. “Upon which,” said William Bradford, “they set apart a solemn day of humiliation, to seek the Lord by humble and fervent prayer, in this great distress.” That same evening it began “to rain with such sweet and gentle showers as gave them cause of rejoicing and blessing God… For which mercy, in time convenient, they also set apart a day of thanksgiving.”
More than a hundred years later, in 1777, George Washington wrote:
Tomorrow being the day set apart by the honorable Congress for Public Thanksgiving and praise, and duty calling us devoutly to express our grateful acknowledgments to God for the manifold blessings he has granted us, the general directs … that the chaplains perform divine service.
In 1778, the Continental Congress issued a Proclamation, designating Thanksgiving as a day to “be observed as a day of public thanksgiving and praise, that all the people may, with united hearts, on that day, express a just sense of his unmerited favors; particularly in that it hath pleased him, by his overruling providence.”
Nowhere, and I know this is shocking, but nowhere in any of our early celebrations of Thanksgiving is there mention of, “be sure to tell your relatives they’re wrong and racist!”
Gratitude leaves no room for haughtiness.
So, tomorrow, as we’re enjoying our turkey and dressing with family (related or otherwise), may we all remember what Thanksgiving is truly about. Your angry uncle might be wrong, but he’s just as deserving of love and kindness as the rest of us.
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Comments
I am the richest man in the world, it just does not include money. A sound faith, great family and friends, and a good job. I think this may be a primary difference to many. Understanding what is important and needed, vs what is wanted.
You also have one of the coolest names 🙂
As I’ve said before, Thanksgiving is easily my favorite holiday.
It comes with few pressures, and the whole impulse of gratitude is one of the very finest that humans experience. And we have so much for which to be grateful!
Aside from the feasting (which is actually a fine rite that should be enjoyed for itself), the chance to reflect and appreciate at this time is a wonderful gift. Doing it now never means that you cannot extend it to be a daily part of your life.
https://news.usni.org/2014/11/27/graphic-u-s-navy-thanksgiving-sea
I spent several happy Thanksgivings aboard the Chuckie V. A few Christmases. Keep them in your prayers.
I never had a Thanksgiving underway but there were two Christmas/Hanukkah deployments. And there was that Thanksgiving in 1970 spent in the Navy Hospital ortho ward with my left leg in traction, waiting for surgery the next day.
Yep, a sailor’s life is just one big, happy party!
Every day is a holiday, and every meal is a feast.
Also, every liberty is like a visit to Newark.
http://goatlocker.org/resources/nav/simulate.htm
“Lock all friends and family outside. Your only means of communication should be with letters that your neighbors have held for at least three weeks, discarding two of five.
Surround yourself with 200 people that you don’t really know or like: people who smoke, snore like Mack trucks going uphill, and use foul language like a child uses sugar on cereal.
Unplug all radios and TVs to completely cut yourself off from the outside world. Have a neighbor bring you a Time, Newsweek, or Proceedings from five years ago to keep you abreast of current events.
Monitor all home appliances hourly, recording all vital information (ie: plugged in, lights come on when doors open, etc.)
Do not flush the toilet for five days to simulate the smell of 40 people using the same commode.
Lock the bathroom twice a day for a four-hour period.
Wear only military uniforms. Even though nobody cares, clean and press one dress uniform and wear it for 20 minutes.
Cut your hair weekly, making it shorter each time, until you look bald or look like you lost a fight with a demented sheep.
Work in 19-hour cycles, sleeping only four hours at a time, to ensure that your body does not know or even care if it is day or night.
Listen to your favorite CD six times a day for two weeks, then play music that causes acute nausea until you are glad to get back to your favorite CD.
Cut a twin mattress in half and enclose three sides of your bed. Add a roof that prevents you from sitting up (about ten inches is a good distance) then place it on a platform that is four feet off the floor. Place a small dead animal under the bed to simulate the smell of your bunkmate’s socks.
Set your alarm to go off at ten-minute intervals for the first hour of sleep to simulate the various times the watchstanders and nightcrew bump around and wake you up. Place your bed on a rocking table so you are tossed around the remaining three hours. Make use of a custom clock that randomly simulates fire alarms, police sirens, helicopter crash alarms, and a new-wave rock band.
Have week old fruit and vegetables delivered to your garage and wait two weeks before eating them.
Prepare all meals blindfolded using all the spices you can grope for, or none at all. Remove the blindfold and eat everything in three minutes.
Periodically, shut off all power at the main circuit breaker and run around shouting “Fire! Fire! Fire!” and then restore power.
At least once a month, force the commode to overflow to simulate a “black water system” boo-boo.
Buy a gas mask and smear it with rancid animal fat. Scrub the faceshield with steel wool until you can no longer see out of it. Wear this for two hours every fifth day especially when you are in the bathroom.
Study the owner’s manual for all household appliances. Routinely take an appliance apart and put it back together.
Remove all plants, pictures and decorations. Paint everything gray, white, or the shade of hospital smocks.
Buy 50 cases of toilet paper and lock up all but two rolls. Ensure one of these two rolls is wet all the time.
Smash your forehead or shins with a hammer every two days to simulate collision injuries sustained onboard Navy ships.
When making sandwiches, leave the bread out for six days, or until it is hard and stale.
Every ten weeks, simulate a visit to another port. Go directly to the city slums wearing your best clothes. Find the worst looking place, and ask for the most expensive beer that they carry. Drink as many as you can in four hours. Take a cab home taking the longest possible route. Tip the cabby after he charges you double because you dress funny and don’t speak right.
Use fresh milk for only two days after each port visit.
Keep the bedroom thermostat at 2 deg C and use only a thin blanket for warmth.
Ensure that the water heater is connected to a device that provides water at a flow rate that varies from a fast drip to a weak trickle, with the temperature alternating rapidly from -2 to 95 deg C.
Use only spoons which hold a minimum of 1/2 cup at a time.
Repaint the interior of your home every month, whether it needs it or not.
Remind yourself every day: “It’s not just a job, It’s An Adventure!
Mix kerosene with your water supply to simulate the de-sal plant on the ship picking up jp5 in the intake — if a lit match thrown into your coffee pot doesn’t ignite it, add more kerosene.
Stand outside at attention at dawn and have the poorest reader you know read the morning paper out loud. Be sure to have him skip over anything pertinent.
Every four hours, check the fluid level in your car’s radiator.
Check the tire pressure and replace air lost from excessive pressure checks. Be sure to place red tag on ignition stating “DANGER: DO NOT OPERATE” while you perform these checks.
Inform your neighbor as to the results of these checks, have him tell you to repeat the checks because he did not see you perform them.
Paint your house gray (exterior) include windows except for rooms you do not frequent, paint your car gray, paint your driveway a different shade of gray.
Clean your house until there’s absolutely not a speck of dust anywhere. Call on a stranger to come inspect your house. Ensure stranger sees dust that has collected in the time it took to find him. Stranger cannot leave until he finds irrational fault with your house/belongings.”
“More Ways to Simulate Navy Life at Home
Buy a dumpster, paint it gray and live in it for 6 months straight.
Run all of the piping and wires inside your house on the outside of the walls.
Pump 10 inches of nasty, crappy water into your basement, then pump it out, clean up, and paint the basement “deck gray.”
Every couple of weeks, dress up in your best clothes and go the scummiest part of town, find the most run down, trashy bar you can, pay $10 per beer until you’re hammered, then walk home in the freezing cold.
Perform a weekly disassembly and inspection of your lawnmower.
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays turn your water temperature up to 200 degrees, then on Tuesday and Thursday turn it down to 10 degrees. On Saturdays, and Sundays declare to your entire family that they used too much water during the week, so all showering is secured.
Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling.
Have your next door neighbor come over each day at 5am, and blow a whistle so loud that Helen Keller could hear it and shout “Reveille, Reveille, all hands heave out and trice up.”
Have your mother-in-law write down everything she’s going to do the following day, then have her make you stand in the back yard at 6am and read it to you.
Eat the raunchiest Mexican food you can find for three days straight, then lock the bathroom door for 12 hours, and hang a sign on it that reads “Secured – contact OA DIV at X-3053.”
Submit a request form to your father-in-law, asking if it’s ok for you to leave your house before 3pm.
Invite 200 of your not-so-closest friends to come over, then board up all the windows and doors to your house for 6 months. After the 6 months is up, take down the boards, and since you’re on duty, wave at your friends and family through the front window of your home…you can’t leave until the next day.
Shower with above-mentioned friends.
Make your family qualify to operate all the appliances in your home (i.e. Dishwasher operator, blender technician, etc)
Walk around your car for 4 hours checking the tire pressure every 15 minutes.
Sit in your car and let it run for 4 hours before going anywhere. This is to ensure your engine is properly “lit off”.
Empty all the garbage bins in your house, and sweep your driveway 3 times a day, whether they need it or not.
Repaint your entire house once a month.
Cook all of your food blindfolded, groping for any spice and seasoning you can get your hands on.
Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month, randomly losing every 5th item.
Spend $20,000 on a satellite system for your TV, but only watch CNN and the Weather Channel.
Have your 5-year-old cousin give you a haircut with goat shears.
Sew back pockets to the front of your pants.
Spend 2 weeks in the red-light districts of Europe, and call it “world travel.”
Attempt to spend 5 years working at McDonald, and NOT get promoted.
Needle gun the aluminum siding on your house after your neighbors have gone to bed.
When your children have been in bed for 3 hours, run into their room with a megaphone, and shout at the top of your lungs that your home is under attack, and order them to man their battle stations.
Post a menu on the refrigerator door informing your family that you are having steak for dinner. Then make them wait in line for at least an hour, when they finally get to the kitchen, tell them that you are out of steak, but you have dried ham or hot dogs.
Repeat daily until they don’t pay attention to the menu any more, they just ask for hot dogs.
In the middle of January, place a podium at the end of your driveway. Have you family stand watches at the podium, rotating at 4-hour intervals.
Lock yourself and your family in your house for 6 weeks. Then tell them that at the end of the 6th week you’re going to take them to Disneyland for “weekend liberty”. When the end of the 6th week rolls around, inform them that Disneyland has been canceled due to the fact that they need to get ready for E-cert, and that it will be another week before they can leave the house.”
Actually the food in the Navy was pretty good. And when it wasn’t I made a special point of not complaining about it. The mess specialists were doing the best they could.
Still, I have to ask. Since when do people serve ham hocks? Especially ham hocks that you have to break free from the congealed grease and they still have hair on them? And there was another memorable time when I bit into a piece of chicken and the red juice sprayed everywhere. One of the stewards saw it and was shocked. He asked, “Sir, I’m sorry. Can I get you another one?”
I’m thinking the last thing I want is another one. But I didn’t say it. I just said, “Thank you, no. I’m good.”
I was always polite to the cooks because I could imagine what they would do to my food if I wasn’t. Also because we had a wrestling club. And one of the guys I wrestled with was a mess specialist in the Vinson. He was an animal, a savage. He could have been anything he wanted in the Navy, including a SEAL.
What did he want to do? He wanted to be a pastry chef. Do any of you remember the Police Academy movie? It was like Moses Hightower, the florist, ripping the seat out of a Honda Civic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAPk9KZbdAE
My brother is a Vinson plankowner.
I don’t want to come across as a fraud. I was never ship’s company. I was a member of the airwing. And later I rode the ship as part of the training battle group. As an instructor for JTFEX and COMPTUEX.
https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=97798
“Carl Vinson Strike Group Completes COMPTUEX/JTFEX”
Have I mentioned my laptop has a mind of it’s own? I didn’t hit the “submit” tab. It did it all by itself.
I grew up during the Vietnam era. My dad was a Coast Guard Radioman Senior Chief. Coasties, at least back in the 1960s, get Navy benefits. I was born in a Navy hospital, and that’s where I went for all my medical care. And I got to see all the horrifically burned and maimed Sailors and Marines. I suppose it was traumatizing. I didn’t think so at the time as I thought it was normal to see some guy with his face burned off and just two bare nostrils on the front of his face.
I sometimes wonder why I joined the Navy considering how afraid I am about fire. Read about how the Sailors on the Stark died screaming in their beds after they were hit by two Iraqi Exocet missiles. The h3ll of it all was that they were fired from such close range the engines ran rampant in the berthing spaces. They just kept spinning and roasting the men.
But also read about the Sailors performing damage control. One Sailor died while turning off the valves on a burst water main so the firefighting crews would have enough pressure on the other. I think my fear of fire had two benefits. I am fiercely devoted to damage control and first aid. When I was an instructor with the training battle group I always made it a point to ask first aid and damage control questions. Not usual for an intel officer, but we’ll all be swimming if we don’t know those things.
We are the only country in history privileged enough (in the actual sense of the word, not it’s modern perversion) to have an entire holiday devoted to intentional, mindful gratitude
Unless you count the other countries that do, I suppose. Canada is the most well known, but there are a few others.
I last berthed with the food services officer on the Chuckie V. I doubt he’s still in the Nav. Finest officer I ever served with. If his replacement is half the man he is, your Navy and Marines will be feasting in the finest fashion.
https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/heritage/life-aboard/navy-thanksgiving.html
The last people I ever want to insult are the cooks. Army, Navy, whatever.
And never, ever, p*ss off the medics!!
I pissed off the corpsmen. Once. And guess what? When I transferred to a different command my entire medical file went missing. So I had to have all my inoculations again.
That’s a mistake I never made again. I mean, I don’t P.O. the corpsmen. But I also made it a point to copy my medical records.
Agreed. We had to take the 4am Dessert Shift for 31st MEU on the USS Germantown. What fresh hell…?
And Docs are the bravest men I’ve known. They don’t get our Marine boot camp training but they still hang with the big dogs on the FEBA, sky lining themselves with nothing but a raised IV bag, triaging wounded with bullets flying all around them. That takes balls.
Go Navy 🙂
If a Marine has a hero it’s going to be his Devil Doc. But if a SEAL has a hero it’s likely to be an Air Force Pararescueman.
https://health.mil/~/media/Images/MHS/Photos/BATMAN%20PJ%20story.ashx
Good guys, all. And they are serving you all right now as you enjoy the comforts of home and hearth.
Anyone want to hear my “Three Days With The SEAlS” story? It doesn’t involve any bad @##ery. I got taught by the real bad @##es that I’m not one of them. Nearly every Navy intel guy has a “My Three Days With The SEALs” story. Actually, it was only two days. And they gave me a black eye while we were trying to cook rice after getting kicked out of the Kadena AFB O club.
Right now as you are enjoying the blessings of home and hearth they are standing watch. Air Force, Army, Marines, Navy, and Coast Guard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=10&v=C_EtUo5mXHw
Keep them in your prayers.
https://maritime.org/doc/cookbook1945/index.htm
“Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor– and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.” President George Washington October 1789
Amen.
It is better to have nothing but a dry piece of bread to eat in peace than a whole house full of food with everyone arguing.
(Pro 17:1 ERV)
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! And thanks, LI. 😉
How to deal with your liberal family members whom you love? Just one-up them in way they can’t disagree with and then go to another room to escape them.
For example, when they bring up the border, point out how sad it is that migrant women and children get robbed and raped and people die trying trying to get a better life. Get on your high horse and announce that you would be happy to pay more for your lettuce and nannies to help them.
If they talk about global warming, say, “I know! I think that we must get serious about the threat! Point out you feel bad about flying/driving to the get together. Then pivot to the fact that
eating meat is not good for the planet. (It is okay to say this as you eat turkey, they will nod their heads as they also eat theirs).
When they talk about Islam, mention FGM. When they talk about abortion, point out that in the 21st Century, it’s weird that we we can not harness technology to come up with a better solution that the barbaric practices of hacking up a living baby.
Oh…I could go on, but the point is that you take their argument and up the ante. It’s okay to be hypocritical. To them, it’s about having correct thought. Actions are irrelevant, so feel free to espousing even MORE correct thought.
The official term for what you are describing is ‘Thanksgivingmanship’
I would suggest a new version of beer pong. Anyone bringing up a political topic has a beer (shot) until the mood lightens.
am the most fortunate man alive–will be the twenty-fourth thanksgiving with my lady–being her husband is and and will always be the greatest honour i will have in this life
a joyful thanksgiving to you and yours
am the most fortunate man alive–will be the twenty-fourth thanksgiving with my lady–being her husband is and will always be the greatest honour i will have in this life
a joyful thanksgiving to you and yours
The whole ‘uncle’ crap was truly, utterly pathetic.
People broke it down line by line, but to be brief:
The ‘correct’ way to ‘debate’ your ‘conservative’ uncle (in quotes because NONE of those are actually true), is to use generic platitudes and have him magically admit he’s wrong.
The ‘correct’ way to ‘debate’ your liberal uncle is to not challenge him on anything and admit he’s right. In fact it EXPLICITLY TELLS you its ‘wrong’ to try to bring up ‘facts and statistics’ if you choose that option!
This is the reason millenial liberals are so angry. They have never had to defend ANYTHING. They actually think they can just mouth baseless platitudes and convert the dirty unwashed masses.
I forget if the adage was “Never discuss sex, politics or religion in polite company” or if was “money, politics or religion”. Still – six, half-dozen.
I found that liberals usually stop once its explained they sound just like an evangelist trying to convert a captive audience. If they persist, I simply respond:
“Have you heard about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ? ”
…but the Wife has very sharp elbows.
I have done that to people, look ’em straight in the eye and say “Jesus loves you”… and smile… really smile.
Clever parody of a frustrated SJW at Thanksgiving, via Insty
https://spectator.us/stop-pretending-love-thanksgiving/
if you are invited to my home for a holiday meal, and start talking schisse, you’ll be eating out in a restaurant instead, with my foot print on your fourth point of contact, and a vulgarly impolite declaration that your sorry azz will never be invited back or welcome again still ringing in your ears.
What is the motive behind trying to disrupt Thanksgiving anyway?
Are Lefties trying to avoid expressing gratitude by virtue signaling how ashamed they are?
There is something sinful in that, although I cant put my finger on it.
On the bright side, it’s the one day out of the year the Left expresses shame.
Maybe it’s the sin of Pride – in their eyes, expressing gratitude involves some kind of submission, a recognition that “someone else built that, and without my help”.
Hmmm. I’ll keep an ear open tomorrow for any dispositive – liberals capable of expressing BOTH gratitude and shame.
Destroying holidays was a Stasi thing.
— Unless your uncle is an ass like john roberts – or your uncle is mooochelle obama.
Roberts rebukes Trump, but was silent when odumbo lashed out at judges:
https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2018/11/21/chuck-grassley-to-chief-justice-john-roberts-you-rebuked-trump-but-sat-silent-through-obamas-abuse/
What a waste of 3 male bodies.
Yup. He’s got a lot of nerve getting righteous about an apolitical court. He caved on Obamacare because Chris Mathews was saying mean things about him on tv.
Post new rules on the door:
Angry democratic socialists who self identify as supporters of institutionalized liars must leave- no exceptions
I would like a simple sign,
“There is no left or right at this table”
“SPOILER: Not everything in life is political, nor has it been, nor should it be. Sure, bigotry is unacceptable, but when you define bigotry as someone who voted for or supports Trump, as most liberals do these days, you’ve lost me and about half the country.“
And also when you do this you are BEING a bigot.
https://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2018/11/22/161523
Funny…and apt…!!!
I hope all have a wonderful and Happy Thanksgiving.
It is such a sad state we live in with the party of hate pushing their hatred into families and gatherings. It is why I shut off any political talk at our gatherings. Regardless of the stance they might have, either in agreement or not with my views, the feast table is not the venue for it.
My grandmother withdrew politics and religion from the list of acceptable topics at her place long before I was born. Her purpose was to get rid of family dissension, and it worked. I’m keeping that rule, too, because my family is all over the map.
These MSM writers want people to be miserable and weak. Shame on them.
Valerie, they have no shame. It’s just not part of a malignant narcissist’s psychology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malignant_narcissism
“These MSM writers want people to be miserable and weak.”
I think Arminius is on to something upthread – the Marxists view the family unit as being in competition with the State. Same reason they hate religion.