How many of you carried out these Thanksgiving rituals?

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/152686

7 Overlooked Thanksgiving Rituals, According to Sociologists

The carving of the turkey, the saying of the grace, the watching of the football. If a Martian anthropology student asked us to name some cultural rites of Thanksgiving, these would be the first few to come to mind. But students of anthropology know that a society is not always the best judge of its own customs.

The first major sociological study of Thanksgiving appeared in the Journal of Consumer Research in 1991. The authors conducted in-depth interviews with people about their experiences of the holiday. They also had 100 students take detailed fieldnotes on their Thanksgiving celebrations, supplemented by photographs. The data analysis revealed some common events in the fieldnotes that people rarely remarked on in the interviews. Here are some Thanksgiving rituals you might not realize are rituals:

1. The giving of the job advice
Teenagers are given a ritual status shift to the adult part of the family, not only through the move from the kids’ table to the grownup table, but also through the career counseling spontaneously offered by aunts, uncles, and anyone else with wisdom to share.

2. The forgetting of the ingredient
Oh no! I forgot to put the evaporated milk in the pumpkin pie! As the authors of the Thanksgiving study state, “since there is no written liturgy to insure exact replication each year, sometimes things are forgotten.” In the ritual pattern, the forgetting is followed by lamentation, reassurance, acceptance, and the restoration of comfortable stability. It reinforces the themes of abundance (we’ve got plenty even if not everything works out) and family togetherness (we can overcome obstacles).


snip

I think we did #6 and #7 only!

[Phentex]

1. We did all but 7!

I walked in the morning but not after the meal. We play games and do a jigsaw puzzle as our after dinner exercise, lol.

It's funny to think we did all the rest. We have lots of traditions with ours but we do spend a fair amount of time talking about the time the oven caught on fire, the time the dog ate the turkey carcass, the time the interstate was backed for miles, the time the jello mold exploded, the time I brought a can of manwich instead of the artichoke hearts as an ingredient we needed in one of our side dishes, etc.

This year's was the smoothest one we've had so far in terms of disasters.

[OriginalGeek]

3. Not for nothin' but

I can't imagine a dish that calls for artichoke hearts that wouldn't be improved by substituting Manwich.

[sakabatou]

2. None of the above

Though we did take a pie home. It wasn't leftovers.

[Kali]

4. heh

the career "advice" isn't limited to teens, it can extend well into one's 50's (hence OUR tradition of avoiding family at these times)

[TeamPooka]

5. funny stuff