The Onion: Thanksgiving Won't Be The Same This Year Without A House

[Demeter]

http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/thanksgiving_wont_be_the_same?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

By Cheryl McCray
November 14, 2007 | Issue 43•46

I love Thanksgiving. It's always my favorite time of year. A time to surround oneself with friends, family, and four walls to help keep out the cold. Now, I know the fact that we don't have a house might seem especially noticeable around the holiday season, since it's kind of a McCray tradition to spend Thanksgiving indoors, but that's no reason to be ungrateful.

Believe me, I miss living in a residence just as much as the next member of this family. I don't know if it's the warm feeling you get from not being on the street or the sense of comfort that only comes from having shelter from the elements. But the hard truth is, no matter how much we loved our house, the bank isn't going to give it back. So the only thing to do now is try and have the best Thanksgiving we can without it—and if I know this family, that's just what we'll do.

After all, Thanksgiving is not about materialism. We don't need a bunch of expensive store-bought decorations of pilgrims and cornucopias, or even places to hang them. 5-year-old Dylan drew a turkey on the back of a discarded pizza box by tracing his hand with my lipstick. If that doesn't say "This is a McCray Thanksgiving," I don't know what does! We'll show everyone under this highway overpass that this family isn't going to lie around on our newspapers and feel sorry for ourselves.

Isn't family what this season is all about? Looks to me like we're all here—except for Karl, who ran off with that TCBY cashier and abandoned us at a service plaza just off the Ohio Turnpike. But we pulled together and overcame those hardships, and through it all our family has continued to get closer and closer in order to avoid freezing to death by the side of the road. In a way, maybe all this happened to remind us to focus on the things that really matter, like family....We will always fondly recall sharing the Thanksgiving meal with Grandma, Grandpa, and all of our aunts, uncles, and cousins. We're just going to have to try a little harder to remember this year, because we're dead to them....Maybe we can't get the whole family under any roof, but who knows? We might have the best Thanksgiving yet. In fact, we've already started creating new traditions, like cowering with each other in shadows until that drunk, homeless veteran stops screaming about the smell of burning flesh and passes out.



I'M FEELING ESPECIALLY SCROOGISH TODAY--BAH HUMBUG, EVERYONE!

[EFerrari]

1. Where did they get the title for this piece?

[Demeter]

2. I Don't Understand the Question

[EFerrari]

3. The title for this piece is a paraphrase of the first sentence of

Little Women, iirc: "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents" grumbled Jo lying on the rug."

[Demeter]

5. Ah, Thank You!

[Joanne98]

4. This is why I want to nationalize everything. I know it's a joke but it

pisses me off!

[Demeter]

6. I Think You Are Spearheading the Next Great Movement

I always wondered how FutureShock would end!