We are taking a break from the Kubo King’s Thoughts On College Education series (part 1 and part 2) to welcome the upcoming Thanksgiving Day. In this article, Kubo King shares his first ever experience with Thanksgiving and Black Friday, and how he and Kubo Queen are spending this year’s Thanksgiving and the days that follow it. It’s a pretty heavy article full of fun and reflection. What are you waiting for? Read on!
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My very first Thanksgiving was in the year 2001. I was eleven years old, and my family had just immigrated to America in July of that year. At the time, I didn’t really know what it was all about, but I remember looking forward to it because it became obvious that my relatives were going to prepare a feast to celebrate it. I’ve always liked eating, and I’ve always looked forward to birthdays, Christmas, and New Year’s largely for that reason as a young child. So from then on Thanksgiving became another event that I would anticipate each year.
The first Thanksgiving feast turned out to be really fun just as I had expected. My family and a bunch of relatives gathered at my aunt’s house. I come from a pretty big family. I have three uncles, four aunts, and a bunch of cousins from my mother’s side alone (my father’s family lives in our previous country, though). So my aunt’s house was filled with people and the noises that accompanied them. The adults had broken into groups each discussing matters of adult life, and there were a bunch of them consuming adult drinks by the garage. The teenagers had done the same (minus the alcohol, of course), but instead discussed important matters of teenage life like who they found attractive in school and whether they had a chance at romance with them. The kids, well, they were playing and were running around screaming. It was a pretty merry scene, and I was just moments away from having my first ever turkey dinner. I was about to consume that big bird I had seen years ago before I came to America.
When I was about eight years old living in a third-world country my parents had shown me a picture my relatives had sent by mail from America. It had one of my aunts and her two daughters posing beside a dinner table right before a holiday dinner. The table had a lot of food on it, but the centerpiece was this really big bird that I presumed was cooked in the oven. I’d never seen such a massive chicken in my life — not anything close in size to the one in the picture. So from much awe and amazement I uttered these words in front of my dad ang laki naman ng mga manok sa America!; to which he said that’s not a chicken, that’s a turkey…
So now you can imagine how excited I was to finally have my first turkey. It turned out that the turkey (along with mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, and other dishes) was in fact delicious, but to my surprise there was this one dish I enjoyed the most — stuffing. In fact, I remember thinking to myself that it wouldn’t be bad if Thanksgiving dinners only consisted of stuffing. I’d never eaten or even heard of it until then, but it quickly became my personal favorite Thanksgiving dish. The feast was a success. We had delicious food, merry conversations, and quality time shared with family. But, there was another thing I also experienced that night that I found very weird.
It was around 3:30 a.m., after the festivities, when my aunt drove a few of my cousins and me to the neighboring town. The town we were heading to had the only Walmart in the entire island. It was dark, and the drive took about half an hour long. We arrived at the Walmart parking lot which was filled with many cars, and drivers that were circling around hoping to find a spot to park in. Eventually, we were able to park the car somewhere and immediately made our way towards the store. As we got closer I quickly noticed the overwhelming number of people who were in line waiting for the store to open. Many people had sleeping bags and tents set up to sleep in as they waited in the dark and cold. Our group got in line as well, and while we were there waiting I asked my eleven year old self how early did the people ahead of us get here? I thought we had driven to the store very early, and so I was shocked at how many people were already ahead of us upon arriving. It finally dawned on me that majority of them might have driven there right after finishing their Thanksgiving meal, cutting the time they could have spent with family, and that maybe even a great number of them had forgone their Thanksgiving feast (a feast shared with family) altogether — just to be one of the first ones as close to the store entrance as possible.
That was my first experience with Black Friday, and I recall having pretty weird feelings about it at the time. While we were in line another question I asked myself was how can their parents and families let them miss Thanksgiving dinner? As an eleven year old boy, I was extremely confused that such a thing happens. I come from a place with strong family values, and that meant you didn’t miss important family events; especially if you were going to miss it just to go shopping. Many years have passed since then, but Black Friday is still something I find very disturbing today. A lot of people will be heading to the shopping malls and the department stores. They will be dealing with the heavy traffic and the crowds of people. Some of them might even get into arguments and fights. It will all be for the new shiny products that will be on sale that day; things they most likely do not need. The crazy part is that the marketing industry has now found a way to enable people to buy things they most likely do not need even more efficiently — Cyber Monday. Now, tech savvy people can participate in the madness and shop using their computers while sitting on a comfortable couch at home. It took care of the traffic and the crowds of people, but it completely ignored the bigger problems facing our society today*. Surely, there must be a better way.
This year, like every year we’ve been together, Kubo Queen and I will be spending Thanksgiving Day with family. This time, since my family will all be out of town visiting relatives, the guests will only consist of Kubo Queen’s family. Specifically, her father, mother, and uncle are coming over to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast prepared by Kubo Queen and I. What’s on the menu? The classics, of course! There will be a 15-pound turkey going in the oven, we will make and bake delicious bread from scratch, I will be making stuffing (my favorite Thanksgiving dish), Kubo Queen will make mashed potatoes with a lot of milk and butter, I will make gravy from scratch, and Kubo Queen’s parents will take care of the desserts and drinks — pumpkin pies and wine. It will be such a great time with delicious food and company. I simply cannot wait.
I will also be taking back the Friday after Thanksgiving from the marketing industry. And, from now on, it will be called Leftovers Friday here in our kubo. We will be spending it eating delicious leftovers from the Thanksgiving feast, and we will be staying home at our kubo doing things we enjoy like reading a book, writing an essay, drawing, watching a film, or just enjoying our precious time together — just Kubo Queen and I. It will be an amazing time.
Finally, the last thing I will be taking back is the Monday after Thanksgiving. And, from now on, it will be called Analog Monday here in our kubo. I will not go on the internet except for work related purposes. As a software engineer it’s difficult to completely unplug from the internet. I do need to use things like Google Search, Stack Overflow, Wikipedia, Skype, and Outlook to do some of my work. But, I will only be using the internet to access those services, and I will only be using those services for work related things. After work I will be going to my dojo to train for an upcoming Judo tournament in December (Winter Nationals).
In the end, it’s up to you how you’ll spend this year’s Thanksgiving Day and the days that follow it. As long as you don’t hurt anybody in the process you don’t really need to explain yourself to anyone, just as I don’t really have to explain myself to anyone either. But, personally, I think this time of the year is better spent with the people you love and admire. Those people deserve your full attention too; a lot more than what the marketing industry wants you to give your attention to. Our time on this planet is limited. And, if I could change my first Black Friday experience, I would have told my aunt to leave me so that I could be in bed sleeping through the night. To be full of energy the next day, and share delicious leftovers throughout the day with my family. To have a meal with my dad who five years later would pass away and not be able to eat with me ever again.
* We will talk about the problems with excessive consumption in future articles.
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