It's Flutie-Riffic!

It's Thanksgiving!  That most joyous of holidays, full of cheer, happiness, balloon-laden parades, and almost no lawn decorations.  Thanksgiving is an American tradition, passed down from the ancient pilgrims, who chiseled images of our forefathers on cave walls with frozen turkey legs.

No, seriously, Thanksgiving is a really cool holiday, mostly because you can eat until you unintentionally rearrange your internal organs, then watch football until passing out on the sofa while someone else does the dishes.  Unlike Christmas, Halloween, or Kwanzaa, there are virtually no lawn decorations involved in this holiday.  You can pretty much kick back, drink beer, watch football, and thank god you aren't a pilgrim.

This is a good thing, because the pilgrims had it bad.  Real bad, judging by what Wikipedia has to say about them.  The pilgrims were seperatists - meaning they had absolutely no sense of direction.  In 1620, they left England in two ships, bound for Virginia, where there was land waiting for them.  By the time they reached North America, they were several hundred miles off course, to the north, in Massachusetts.  At this point, they made an important decision that can be summed up as "Fuck it, we're here."

"Here" happened to be Plymouth, Massachusetts.  The pilgrims stuck it out here through the winter, during which half of them died.  The following autumn, they celebrated the first Thanksgiving feast in history.  This "thanksgiving" was intended to give thanks for a bountiful harvest, and for not being dead.  History does not say what the turkeys thought of this, but the stuffing and cranberries pretty much went with the flow.

Ever since, it has been an American tradition to butcher a large, fat bird, and eat it with a bunch of crazy relatives on the fourth Thursday of November.  Throw in some pumpkin pie, and a good Hail Mary, and you have the makings of one great holiday.  Just don't go sailing to Virginia.