Things I Want This Thanksgiving

Each year at Thanksgiving, my family goes around the table and everyone offers a short list of things they are thankful for. It sounds cute, but I’m telling you — it’s the same shit every year. The little kids are thankful for their stuffed animals and their parents, the teenagers are thankful for the meal and for being together, the egotistical college kids are thankful for the “opportunity to receive such a liberal education in a world tied down by inequality” (that’s me), and the adults are thankful for their spouses, their jobs, and their happiness.

I love our tradition, and it’s one I plan on bringing into my own family one day, too. But wouldn’t it be nice if Thanksgiving was a bit more balanced? Don’t you get tired of talking about giving, and just wanna ‘get’ a little? Well, I certainly do. And I think it’s time to make that change. Hopefully, Santa, you see this and come early. Here’s my Thanksgiving List (you can leave my gifts in the guest bathroom — no one ever really uses it, anyway):

1. To meet an attractive, very distant cousin at dinner who I can legally hook up with.

2. A fish course. Because I’m a pescatarian, you know?

3. To be able to, for the first time, practice whatever my therapist calls “mindful eating.” I’m thinking if I can do it once, this Thanksgiving, then I never have to do it again.

4. Maybe a new outfit to wear for the occasion. I think a wool skirt and an oversized sweater with tights and booties would be a good look.

5. An infinite supply of wine. You can decide on the red vs. white. I’m not mature enough to understand which would complement the meal better.

6. A silk eye-mask. My old ones are stained from going to sleep with makeup on too many times, and I have a feeling there’s going to be a point in the night where I’m ready to ‘check out,’ if ya know what I mean.

7. Precautionary Gas-X.

8. To match on Tinder with every high school boy I fantasized about in the seventh grade. Ain’t nothing like being home for the holidays, eh?

9. To get over 100 likes on my Instagram of the Thanksgiving spread.

10. A Mophie. There’s nothing worse than giving up your only charger to an old uncle who you’ve only met at your Bat Mitzvah. And even then he was just there for the free food.

11. A book deal would be nice. Then I could finally exploit and monetize the secret hilarity of my extended family.

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