Ducks @ Oregon - University of Oregon

Turkey Day Festivities

Peter E.

November 27, 2009 - 10:34 AM

Thanksgiving was incredible. I am in West Linn at my Dad's Cousin Mel's house, and all my Northwest family is congregating for the holiday. Rather than giving you a generic "I love spending time with family, eating turkey, and watching football" post about why Thanksgiving is so meaningful to me, I'm going to break down the three reasons Thanksgiving is arguably the best holiday of the year.

 

1. Smoked Turkey. My Cousin Mel slow smoked our 26 pound bird in his smoker from 9am to 7pm. My philosophy with cooking is the longer the better, and slow cooked meat is the way to go. The turkey was tender, smoky, and extremely flavorful; my salivary glands beg for seconds just thinking about it. The smoking process goes beyond just the meat because it becomes a social experience with people gradually congregating around the smoker as appetites rise faster than the internal temperature of the bird. Although hungry, it's great to talk with relatives and learn new things about everyone while drooling in anticipation of turkey. As Mel remarked over a smoky beer, "It doesn't matter if the bird's perfect, you just wait long enough until everyone's starving and it'll seem like the best thing you've ever tasted." Without a doubt it's the best way to cook a turkey

 

2. Fall. It would be very easy to condense "fall" into specific subcategories such as "football,"     "pumpkin pie," "apple cider," "fall color," etc. But why? For me, fall is perhaps my favorite season because it has many parts that are individually incredible but combine to make an all-inclusively awesome time of year. I believe Thanksgiving is the culmination of, for lack of a better term, all things good. In one 24 hour period you have: football, fall color, harvest foods, and good company to boot. In short, you have all things good.

 

3. Vacation. It's Week 9 of 10 at the University of Oregon, and most everyone is exhausted come this time of year. There's a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of winter break, but it will not be realized before the gauntlet of final exams and class projects. Thus, Thanksgiving is a much needed break from the term-end rigors. Not only that, it gives a hint of the comforts of home before the long break (meals cooked by others and free time to name a couple luxuries). I am lucky that I will be teaching next year, so this break was a nice reminder of the beginning of college breaks but the anticipation of more Thanksgiving and winter breaks to come. Needless to say, I hope to cling to those breaks for as long as possible.

 

In a roundabout way, I do love Thanksgiving for eating turkey, spending time with family, and watching football. However, as primitive as some of these experiences are (i.e. congregating around a smoker to watch a turkey cook), the layered richness of family, weather, color, harvest, and anticipation of things to come make Thanksgiving my favorite holiday.