There have been many holidays to become nationally celebrated over the years. How widely they are celebrated and how popular they are vary immensely, from Christmas to Labor day, to simpler holidays like National Pancake Day. Most of these holidays receive about as much attention as they deserve. Well, there is one holiday that receives far more attention than it deserves. A holiday that is easily one of the most popular and looked forward to, for absolutely no good reason: Thanksgiving.
The most obvious reason is its grossly misrepresented history. Even today, people are told about a feast between colonists and Native Americans to celebrate the colonization of America. However, the feast never happened. In fact, the reason the celebration even occurred was not to celebrate the harvest but to celebrate a group of colonial soldiers who had slaughtered hundreds of Native American men, women, and children. Celebrating Thanksgiving isn’t celebrating a union between Natives and colonists, or the first harvest of colonial America, but the ruthless killing of Natives.
And then the food, it isn’t that good anyway. It’s taking the worst of every food group and putting it all into one meal. Turkey is the single worst meat to grace our earth. Really, all birds taste bad, including chicken, but chicken is at least good when breaded. An option like that doesn’t exist for turkey. It’s just bad food only cooked in one way. Now, if KFC released Kentucky Fried Turkey, it might change things, but as it stands, turkey is horrible. Cranberries are also single-handedly the worst berry. Stuffing is pointless. Mashed potatoes are undoubtedly the worst way to prepare a potato. Every part of a signature Thanksgiving meal is set up to be bad. While many people defend the food as being good, they either eat things that are not part of a traditional Thanksgiving meal or, for some reason, like these disgusting foods.
Thanksgiving is simply a pointless tradition that people like for no apparent reason. Most people these days just see it as an excuse to eat a big meal, watch football, or have a glorified family reunion. Every other holiday with similar popularity actually stands for something and gives people a reason to celebrate it. Except for Thanksgiving. There is no reason to celebrate this holiday as much as the others.
Thanksgiving is a holiday built on a bloody history, horrible food, and excuses. At most, it should only be as popular as holidays like Columbus Day or Labor Day. Enough for us to note its existence, but nothing more. It does not deserve anything more than that. It is a mercy to still call it as important as Earth day. At least that actually stands for something.