Someone has to do the thanking

My dad exploded one Thanksgiving. He and my mom had been up since 5:30, cooking a bird the size of a sumo wrestler. (Could have been an ostrich. It was on sale.) My siblings and I passed the morning gorging on Apple Jacks and turning into shrieking sugar puppets. By the time we sat down to the table, the Minnesota Vikings had shellacked our hapless Detroit Lions, and my brother and I had broken out the classic “Stop it!”/”No, YOU stop it!” debate.

That’s when my dad went off: “You ought to be grateful!” He began, in a tone that made our china figurines quiver like it was Judgment Day. More on this in a moment.

Guys can be at a bit of a loss on Thanksgiving. Women begin the Martha Stewart Triathlon before sunrise, so their roles (and crippling expectations) are well-defined. But men struggle for a role. One year, I tried cooking with my wife. But several thrown elbows, a smoke alarm and a tube of burn ointment later, we concluded my place was on the couch.

It’s easy to believe men do nothing on Thanksgiving. We sit, motionless, while our wives dash about like launch crews at Mission Control. To the untrained eye, we are listless couch monkeys. When, in fact, guys are the inert masters of gratitude, priming ourselves for a burst of appetite and appreciation. (Note: If no burst in two days, check for a smell.)

Guys provide the gratitude. Women move mountains on Thanksgiving. But without men to eat and be grateful, the day would just be an endless seminar of recipe analysis. (“Is it too dry? Too spicy? Remember the year it was too dry and spicy?”) Someone has to say, “Man, that is good!,” and eat irrational amounts of “that” to prove it. What is Thanksgiving if no one gives thanks?

Guys are also in charge of the big picture. If the string bean casserole is mushy, women condemn it, explain it, drop the subject, pick it up again, then convene in the kitchen to dissect it like the Zapruder film. Someone has to say, “It’s just a string bean casserole! It’s fine!” In extreme circumstances, we eat the evidence.

And guys are in charge of the awkward truth. Every family has its drama. The little quirks and edges of our loved ones take on mammoth proportions as we gather over the holidays. Women prefer to smooth things over. That’s not always the best thing. “You ought to be grateful!” my dad said that day. “You’re all here, and healthy and safe! A lot of people have a whole lot less!”

In the following silence, we abandoned our selfish concerns in favor of a deeper theme: Why is Dad such a buzz-kill? But, between the scraping forks and dinging glassware, we noticed the stuffing was quite good. The cranberry sauce, too. Somebody made a joke, and everybody laughed. It was actually a good Thanksgiving. We wish you one, as well.