Plepale to die, loun-eyed Amelican Tulkey!

It’s zero-dark-thirty in the wee hours of the morning (or if you’re an incontinent oldster, the “wee-wee hours”), 27 degrees F. outside in ‘sunny’ Suckatomato, and already I’ve walked the pup (she’s Siberian, remember, so she’s in her element!), fed the squirrels (via their tree feeder), placated our two ‘shared-with-the-neighbors’ feral kitties (Whitey and Cinder, both of whom are very woke), gone through all my 300 emails (of which 299 are ‘Black Friday’ advertising spam) and T-Day was yesterday (thank Ghod!).

But let me explain that last utterance for your elucidation.

Wifie is Chinese and as is de rigueur for Asians of all persuasions, she has an extended family (several of whom live locally). This can be both a very good thing and the worst thing imaginable, if you are an evil Honky (white man), with a wicked sense of Gaelic humor.

The local relatives include three of wifie’s four sisters (and two brothers, one of whom remains on the Mainland of China evangelising and the other in Oklahoma). The three local sisters are ‘baby-sis-in-law’ and 'second eldest' (who now suffers from dementia, complicated by a recent stroke) sister. Each lives separately and has her own home, as do wifie and I.

Baby-sis-in-law is the ‘Spoiled Rotten Asian’ archetype of the group, who retired from a career as a computer specialist for a certain nameless state government, and buys an expensive new German car every other year (she’s gone through three Porsches already and is currently working on destroying an Audi). She’s also a youngish ‘Karen-the-Progressive-Cat-Lady’ clone, regrettably, who believes that ABC’s David Muir is an Oracular Deity greater than Zoroaster’s Zarathustra, and that NBC’s Lester “The News Molester” Holt sits on the right hand of Ghod himself.

Naturally enough, her expensive television is programmed to receive only one news channel via satellite (CNN, right?) and she is currently suffering from severe post-election “Trump Drangement Syndrome” (like millions of her feminist sisters), wherein such afflicted (female) souls believe that the end of the civilized world is imminent (Lasciate ogne speranza voi ch’intrante!).

Unmarried, with no children, she also treats herself to a spectacular ‘Grand Tour’ travel experience at least every year or two and has such expensive tastes that she considers a Rolex Gold Oyster Date-just merely a cheap piece of junk. The term ‘lavish lifestyle’ suits her about as perfectly as a near-pornographic Taylor Swift stage outfit hides that pop-fad musical queen’s pulchitrudinious modesty.

The other sister present at our annual ‘family’ holiday gatherings, the 2nd eldest one with some serious dementia/stroke difficulties, is also the most perfect embodiment of onstinant Chinese pragmatism ever documented on record. She refuses to accept any help from anyone, least of all her sisters, and her first knee-jerk response to just about anything asked of or offered to her is a feisty “NO!” Naturally, her mental acuity suffers somewhat from her health condition and her thoughts tend to be a bit disjointed and hard to follow (especially at the dinner table), and she has a most disconcerting way of beginning to say something and immediately breaking up into a fit of ear-splitting cackles that would make Kamala Harris jealous. Needless to relate, such unfortunates do not make stimulating table conversation under the best of circumstances, sadly.

Wifie, the eldest of the sibs (and the only one to marry), provided the strong guiding influence over her younger sisters in their early life, but these days baby-sis-in-law seems to have taken over as the prime lifestyle ‘influencer’ in the family. Wifie, to her credit, has remained supportive and loyal to me for more than 36 years but we’ve now reached that stage in later life when we are all-too familiar with each other’s quirks and foibles. She’s also (like her whole family) a true-blue, absolutely unquestioning and supremely devout Chinese Christian convert (I actually always preferred the Buddhist persuasion, myself…ironic, eh?).

This is an interesting dynamic with regards to me, since I am about as rigidly non-believing as anyone who was raised as a Catholic/Anglican (albeit with a strong bent for Western and Ancient Greek philosophy) could possibly be. My Gods are not celestial but human (e.g. Christopher Hitchens and Robert Dawkins, etc.) and although I used to attend an annual Anglican High Church Christmas service once in a while, it was only because I regard traditional RC and Anglican masses as an aesthetic art-form (the same way I would regard the Mormon Tabernacle as an art-form…not as a religious institution for communicating with an invisible, intangible Supreme Deity). “Priest” in my book, whether of the Egyptian Sun God Amon-Ra or of the Roman Catholic Church, is simply another word for ‘protected potential child-molester.’ Am I just a tad opinionated here? Resoundingly, YES!

So there we are, wifie, who keeps trying to get me to turn to God’s Salvation, and me, who believes that if anyone ever was God-like, it would have to be a Goethe, a Schopenhauer or a Nietzsche (Note: Goethe was a Spinozan Atheist of the "Being = God" variety, who held the view that only fools believe in God or 'gods.').

In that context, it’s a hopeless and irresolvable pairing to be sure. But despite the fact that I am an extreme eccentric of DSM-5 (i.e. Don Quixote quality) grade, with so many follies, foibles and rite-of-passage blunders in life that it would take an absolute Saint of the Joan d’Arc type to serve as my faithful Sancho Panza throughout this vale of tears known as life, wifie has remained true-blue faithful to me throughout!

For that I am ever grateful and love her so very much! And despite our otherwise having very little in common, we both love Husky dogs and classical music…and that makes up for a LOT! [I could add that she was VERY HOT STUFF when we were much younger, but I will refrain from making that observation here, LoL.]

At any rate, there we are, all four of us gathered together at baby-sister-in-law’s house to commence the traditional T-day dinner. Let the fun begin!

And it does, given that at such gatherings no one talks much, since it’s the Chinese custom when eating to consume large quantities…no time wasted for chit-chat, such as one experiences around a Western (honky-type) T-day feed. But this begs some further explanations.

Yesterday, when we underwent the annual Chinese Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner Ordeal, everyone prepared a separate dish and then all converged upon (in our case) sis-in-law's place (baby-sis-in-law).

Thereafter ensued both social and gastronomic chaos, since baby sis-in-law, being of the...er, ahem, shall we say 'pleasantly plump' size, keeps the house thermostat set at 60 degrees (otherwise she gets too warm), with all the windows wide-open (despite its being winter and 32 degrees F. outside, since the cats need to be able to come and go), and when the various dishes arrived, they tended to sit and sit and sit (getting stone cold) while everyone puttered about attending to minor, pre-repast final details.

Finally, all the food was brought to the table and then we went through the dreaded traditional Chinese Family Seating Protocol Ritual (Phase 2 of the CTTDO), whereby the eldest has to be seated first and everyone younger has to take their seats in precise sequence and chronological order of age. Meanwhile, no one can eat until everyone is seated, so the chaos merrily continues since the 2nd eldest now has some dementia and also suffered a stroke two years ago, so she's about as easy to maneuver to table as a herd of baby-sis-in-law’s cats.

Then, finally, after we've got 2nd eldest sister hogtied to her seat (decorously positioned, of course), and almost everyone else was seated, baby sis-in-law (whose home it is) was still puttering nervously about in the kitchen. Naturally, the family are not prone to making meaningful, light-hearted chit-chat (like an American Honky family) as we awaited the invocation (give the Christian blessing) since everyone is a Christian-converted individual (except the token atheist, me), which precedes any actual oral mastication; so therefore, everyone sat around looking absolutely stony-faced and as omnisciently silent as the Great Buddha himself under the Bodhi Tree.

By this time, ALL the food...especially all the formerly sizzling hot (and portendingly delicious) veggies...had begun to turn into small blocks of red, green and yellow ice until finally the Great Turkey itself emerged from the kitchen in its final stages of de-feathered terminal hypothermia. Whoopee!

[You tink I exaggerate dis, you roun-eyed, red-skinned hairy Scotsman?! No way I lie about such gruesome Asian tortures as is this annual test of everyone's fortitude and Buddha qualities (albeit with an oddly Christian flavor, as previously noted).]

I look forward to participating in this annual event about as much as I eagerly thrill to the prospect of undergoing a root canal at my local tooth-driller's orifice, when my DDS hands over his last minute or tardy appointments to an office assistant for coverage during his own yearly T-Day absence!

After all is said and done (and dismissive of my sardonic irony, here), the dinner, such as it was was very filling and had the gustatory fare been only 30 degrees or so warmer, it would have been a culinary spectacular of the first water!

From the vantage of myself, a born conversationalist and someone most desirous of even the slightest witty interchanges around good food, all this lacks a certain fulfillment nevertheless, even if I am today waddling about in the customary manner with the mandatory belt let-out two inches and a firm hope that all that delicious stuff will soon be definitively processed and well on its way to the Suckatomato Public Works Sanitary Service processing reservoir, post-haste!

At this point I will leave you all with the below highly illegal and ethically verboten reprinted Thanksgiving commentary by one of my favorite SPECTATOR MAGAZINE journalists (‘Cockburn’…honest! That’s his real name!), shamefully lifted from the December issue of that publication (the world’s oldest…since 1828…continually published print-magazine in the entire world!).

Postscript (dated 26 Dec 24):

Yesterday we again gathered together for the annual Chinese Traditional Christmas Dinner Ordeal (CTCDO), which is conducted largely along the same lines and under the same sad constraints as the immediately prior turkey feast on T-Day.

Predictably, and again due to all the previously mentioned complexities of getting all the familial priorities squared away, the otherwise magnificent dinner was about 30 degrees F. colder than it should have been. I can't begin to describe how unappetising veggie dishes are when they are stone cold.

And again, the house thermostat was frozen at its 'Arctic' setting, so the combined effects of cold...both extrinsic and intrinsic...really blanketed the occasion with a frosty avalanche of soul-numbing proportions (sadly!).

Still, if one can disregard the culinary chill of the fare, it was immensely satisfying if only measured by sheer cubic capacity of gustatory on-loading standards and I again spent the next day wallowing around like an overloaded Great Lakes ore ship!

I suspect that an Eskimo family of Aluits would have loved it--so much better than cold whale & seal blubber!

Be well, stay sane and look forward to the loverly (sic) warm breezes of Spring, eh!

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COCKBURN:

Mischief, Mayhem, Washington Gossip!

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Wishing you a joyless and guilt-ridden Thanksgiving!

Elsewhere in the world, they just call Thanksgiving “Thursday.” But in the addled minds of some on America’s progressive left, it’s something far worse.

Joy Reid aired her “Thanksgiving message to MAGA trolls,” in which she discussed her “alternative” Thanksgiving idea for those who voted for Donald Trump: “Make your own dinner, MAGA, make your own sandwiches, wipe your own tears, troll among yourselves with Elon and leave us alone. You’ve got your heart’s desire: the president you dreamed of, and worship instead of Jesus.”

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times offered an ode to illegal immigrants and Axios’s Russell Contreras published a piece about the myth of Thanksgiving — Contreras preempted the heat his piece created on X, having posted a few days prior about his decampment to the fever swamps of BlueSky.

“Genocide,” Jewish Voice for Peace, a radical group in George Soros’s network, tweeted. “Land theft. Ethnic cleansing. Environmental destruction. Forced displacement of people from their homes, and sequestration into isolated areas with (artificially) scarce resources. Criminalization and surveillance.” That’s right, JVP is talking about Thanksgiving.

The group, which posted an intimidating-looking graphic about “land dispossession” in Israel and America, advocated for Native Americans and for Palestinians to overthrow their conquerors via “right of return” and “#LandBack,” respectively.

“On this day, Indigenous people and allies confront the settler-colonial narratives of ‘Thanksgiving,’ observing it instead as a National Day of Mourning,” the group wrote. “The whitewashed story of unity with the Wampanoag people — who have long lived in southeastern Massachusetts and eastern Rhode Island — obscures the true history and ongoing violence against Indigenous life.” Cheerful stuff.

While the majority of elected officials of both parties are in the pro-Thanksgiving camp, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was the fly in America’s ointment once more. “This Thanksgiving, we mourn the Indigenous people killed by European settlers and the United States in order to steal their land,” she wrote. “From here to Palestine, we stand in solidarity with all Indigenous people as they fight for freedom on their own land.”

Tlaib also posted a land acknowledgement of sorts, paying homage to “the Peoria, Anishinabewaki, Bodwéwadmi, Myaamia, Meškwahki·aša·hina, Wyandot, Peoria [sic] and Mississauga peoples whose land we’re on.”

Not all progressives, Cockburn should note, were sourpusses this Thanksgiving season. Senator Bernie Sanders published a completely normal Thanksgiving post that paid homage to Norman Rockwell. That said, let’s wait and see what Tlaib and her pals do when Christmas and Hanukkah roll around…

MAGA Thanksgiving versus MAHA Thanksgiving

When you have a big family, Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to get everyone together, share a plate of turkey and reflect on all that you’re grateful for. Elon Musk, the X CEO and sire of many offspring, opted for a lower-key affair, however: he was spotted on President-elect Trump’s table at the Mar-a-Lago festivities yesterday, dancing to “YMCA” as he broke bread with his mother Maye, Melania and Barron Trump.

On the opposite coast, prospective health secretary RFK Jr. showed how it’s done, gathering five of his children and his wife Cheryl Hines.

RFK also offered an insight into how he keeps his turkey “healthy,” posting a video of him slowly deep-frying it in boiling beef tallow as Hines nervously watches on. Cockburn isn’t sure just how good idea it is to cook that close to a wooden crosshatch fence — but he can’t fault the look of the bird. Let’s all look forward to a seed oil-free celebration in a year’s time.

You will not regret inviting Cockburn to your Christmas party (he promises)

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful... DC is getting into the Christmas spirit already. Cockburn spotted a tree on New York Avenue well over two weeks ago — and last Friday we even got a sprinkling of morning snow. But the time of goodwill shall not truly be upon us... until the shindigs start.

Once again, Cockburn is offering his services as your seasonal scribe, your Capitol Hill Clement Clark Moore — he will document the misdeeds of your Christmas party, this year, as every year. Send your invitations to cockburn.thespectator.com and he will shoot down your chimney, dangling his baubles, to feast on your milk and cookies (or bourbon, if you have it). He will be on his best behavior — or not, whatever your preference. Solicit away — it does keep this newsletter lively, after all...

DC gets the Jack Schlossberg lookalike contest it deserves

Around 500 or so brown-haired white women gathered in Meridian Hill Park Sunday afternoon for DC’s version of the recent viral “lookalike contest” trend. Their objective was ostensibly to find the best doppelgänger of Jack Schlossberg, TikTok sensation and grandson of JFK. Though many in attendance appeared to have another motive: becoming the next woman to mysteriously perish at the hands of a Kennedy after a fling. “God gave you everything but our numbers,” read one handmade placard. Toward the front, one of the organizers brandished an “I’m single” sign. “This is so silly,” she said, as the attendees and judges whittled down the contenders, through voice votes and Schlossberg trivia.

Daniel Bonomo, a twenty-five-year-old Georgetown grad student, ultimately won out over the other white men and nonbinaries. “I’m gonna go watch Wicked now,” he told the crowd. He received gift cards and a cash prize.

Not in attendance: Schlossberg himself, to the disappointment of many. Perhaps he was too busy gearing up for a week of flamethrowing Pod Save America on Instagram...

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PS: Delightful, irreverent stuff, which Cockburn is famously noted for! [Since I stole the above columnar commentary from THE SPECTATOR, (US edition, published in Texas) I strongly recommend that worthy publication to you. A subscription is one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself (or anyone who hates 'word salads' and the 'smell of JOY in the air!', this holiday season!)]