Ask Abbie: Thanksgiving in the pandemic era

Happy early day of thankfulness my darling cornucopias. I hope you all physically find a way to embody a goat’s horn overflowing with flowers, fruit and corn, while also metaphorically embodying the symbol. Personally, I am thankful for you all every day of the year but on Nov. 26 I will be telepathically sending you all an abundance of love and positive wavelengths. So if you feel a peaceful warmth that suddenly envelops you like when you drink a mug of mulled cider, that was me! 

This Thanksgiving holiday is going to be different for many of us. Many of our traditions will be unable to occur due to the pandemic we have all survived through for the past eight months. With cases rising day by day, it is imperative we all do our best to help one another continue to survive it!

Every family and individual will naturally be taking different stances and cautionary methods to the holiday. We will be finding new ways to celebrate, some of which may undoubtedly lead to stress, unrest and woe that often comes hand in hand with change. 

However, know that however you decide to celebrate the holiday, keep in mind the reason for the season – remembering that the Pilgrims, who are often idealized as heroic Amercans, were colonizers who stole land from Native Americans, who still have not received adequate reparations, not to mention the manslaughter and widespread disease they were unable to escape. Oh and to also remember to be thankful! 

Okay, okay, putting America’s horrifying history that we will never be able to escape or change aside, this holiday has the ability to be invigorating this year with it being so unfathomable to many of us about how it will look at the moment. Maybe you’re celebrating the holiday with your immediate family, or perhaps you’re spending it with friends. For all one knows, you may be planning to not spend the day with anyone other than yourself and your madness. 

There are so many ways to spend the last Thursday in November before the next holiday season rolls in and suffocates us, not caring if you celebrate it or not. So no matter what your situation may be, have fun with it.  

If you’re spending the day with friends or by yourself, maybe you can hold a virtual Thanksgiving with your friends via zoom. We live in a virtual world now so what could be more on brand? You could also try going on one of those sociopathic early morning Thanksgiving runs I often see sociopaths participating in. If neither of those resonate with you, eat a rotisserie chicken in your shower, fully clothed of course. If you’re all alone then no one can judge you other than your camera which you must capture the event with. Wait, do people eat chicken or turkey on Thanksgiving? 

Personally, if I was spending the holiday alone, I would go back to my roots, forage for edible mushrooms, paint a picture on a brick with mud for any forest friends and face my fears of squirrels by seducing one of those bushy tailed tree dwelling rodents to eat an acorn out of the palm of my hand. Does anyone else think that squirrels and the month of November are conceptually the same exact thing? I see no difference between the two in my head.

Whichever one of my ideas you decide to partake in, because if you have read this far into the article that means that you have no choice but to do one of them, remember to be safe and keep yourself and everyone around you as healthy as possible. Oh and last but not least, write down or capture in e-methods what the holiday looked like for you, if not for your personal records, then for your future unborn children who may be alive when we’re living through our second pandemic!