Tie-dyed Turkey

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19.Nov.2002

I love commercialism. Ok, no I don’t. But you do have to admire a company that can cash in on Thanksgiving, whether or not their product has any relevance to this particular holiday or not. Its America at it's commercial best. It used to be just turkey farmers and Hallmark that made the big bucks on this holiday, but now there are a lot more companies out there doing it. Some actually give you great holiday freebies and advice, but most are out to make a buck. One of my favorite Thanksgiving websites is Ben & Jerry’s. Yep, the quirky ice cream moguls.

If you’re like me, and there are more of you out there than you’re willing to admit to, your childhood thanksgiving memories include expensive ice cream in little pint tubs lined up and down the big table. Our first course would be something with a little pumpkin in it to get us all in the mood, then we’d head straight for Chunk ‘O’ Turkey with little dabs of gravy in it. Mmmm, good times.

On Ben & Jerry’s Thanksgiving website they have pictures of pilgrims and Indians all holding ice cream cones and smiling. Well, gee, who wouldn’t be smiling? The sad thing is that all the cones look like they’re full of just one flavor—strawberry. I’m sure that there must have been more than one flavor of ice cream at the very first Thanksgiving feast between the pilgrims and their indigenous neighbors. At the very least those pilgrims should be holding cones laden with scoops of Cherry Garcia, Phish Food or my personal favorite, Chubby Hubby.

The pilgrims in the Ben & Jerry’s website are clothed in tie-dyed duds. I had no idea that our early settlers had hippie tendencies, but I was probably out sick on the day they taught that in American History, The Tie-Dyed Years.

If you want to check out our cool and laid back predecessors, here’s the link http://www.benjerry.com/thanksgiving/

While I was researching thanksgiving on the web I had one of those promotional pop-up things that are so very annoying. This one had, of course, a Thanksgiving theme to it that caught my eye. It was a cartoon graphic of a turkey looking at me with big frightened eyes and a bulls eye that kept moving across the screen. I was told I’d get a free turkey shoot screen saver if I clicked on the turkey. Supposedly I’d be able to spend hours upon hours watching Tom scurry across the screen in an attempt to avoid becoming a delicious Thanksgiving meal. What Thanksgiving celebration would be complete without playing Lets Shoot the Turkey? So my holiday gift to you and yours is the web address for this traditional of all Thanksgiving games. http://start.freeze.com/turkey3/index.asp?f=freezegopop1
After all, what’s more appropriate on a day set aside to give thanks than being able to shoot some poor wretched bird over and over again. I know, you can be thankful that you’re not him.

If you really want to learn something about Thanksgiving, go to http://www.historychannel.com/thanksgiving/. It’s the History Channel’s website that tells you how and what the pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians probably ate on that first Thanksgiving meal and how they ate it; without forks. Seems they didn’t have forks, which means they couldn’t use them. Perhaps my children do have that one custom down, as they generally end up using their fingers while eating. Who knew they were so up on History? Of course you can buy something on this website as well, a video all about the origins of Thanksgiving. I wonder if they will explain this tie-dyed clothing thing?

I’ve learned one thing about Thanksgiving this year, and it’s that I’m thankful I wasn’t a pilgrim. Do you know how those people had to live? If they lived at all? Out of the original 102 pilgrims, 47 of them died that first winter. Imagine feeling gratitude in circumstances such as those. We get all whacked out because our turkey isn’t moist and tender. All we have to do it stuff it, put it in an oven and baste it occasionally. Those poor women had to sit in front of a blazing fire and continually turn their bird over a spit all day long to make certain it was evenly cooked.

There were no football games to distract the men, so they probably had to put up with the ‘is it done yet?’ chorus hour after hour. They didn’t have butterball.com to go to for advice or 1-800-butterball to phone for recipes. On Butterball’s website you can subscribe to what they affectionately call Turkey Mail. Most of the mail I receive falls into that category, but that’s another column.

All holidays have a commercial aspect to them, that won’t ever change. With all the websites popping up to gain from this, my only question is, how do I get in on it?

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