The Student News Website of Francis Howell North High School.

FHNtoday.com

The Student News Website of Francis Howell North High School.

FHNtoday.com

The Student News Website of Francis Howell North High School.

FHNtoday.com

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The Collector Store

A tofurkey Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving is going to be a little weird, and it has nothing to do with Aunt Berta’s mustache. This Thanksgiving, as most people gather around the ceremonial roasted turkey, I will be eating something made out of textured soy protein.

This holiday season is my first as a vegetarian, and I don’t know what’s for dinner.
American holidays seem to revolve around food, misunderstood traditions, and caring about the homeless once a year, things more linked than you’d think.

American’s love food. We are diverse in our love, however. For some, it’s consuming as much of it as cheaply as possibly, regardless to how it may affect their health; while for some, it’s displaying their vast knowledge of semi-pretentious organic food. These two diverse camps seem to dovetail around the holidays, as their menus become generally similar.

But food around the holidays is kind of disturbing to me and here’s why: large amounts of poultry, more poultry and possibly ham, are killed not only for human consumption, but for nonsensical traditions.

The entire tradition of Thanksgiving I haven’t understood in a historical context since I came to realize that stuff between the Native Americans and the Pilgrims wasn’t exactly hunky-dory. The Pilgrims forced Native Americans into slavery and took their land and killed off the population by way of disease and violence. But every Thanksgiving you’ll see pictures of the ‘first’ Thanksgiving, which generally involves some very giving Aryan women feeding some very thankful Natives a very large bird. And corn. Pumpkin pie, anyone?

So what’s the purpose of a holiday like Thanksgiving, then? A once yearly reminder to give thanks? That’s about as affective as my dentist’s once yearly reminder to floss. It’s not going to– happen. Once the holiday season is over, we’ll return to not noticing and not caring about the needy.

Defy these nonsensical traditions. This Thanksgiving, for the first time, I’ll be skipping the turkey. But even more importantly, I’ll be skipping the cruelty, and I won’t miss the taste at all.

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