The Glutton Bowl

"Pass the mashed potatoes, please," I say, thinking to myself, I really sound fat right now. Fifteen minutes into the Thanksgiving feast, I'm already full. I don't need any more food. I pause. I still somehow want more food; my stomach is full; my breathing is shallow. My wife proceeds to pass the mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, rolls, turkey, green bean casserole--and I put them all in my mouth, one after the other until my plate is empty. I am a glutton today. Somewhere in a lonely grave, right now, Dr. Atkins must be crying.

Don't get me wrong, celebrating a meal together is a great way to remember the good times. But, Thanksgiving has become a celebratory meal on steroids. For most Americans, myself included, Thanksgiving isn't a meal. It's a marathon. Eat, eat, eat. Burp, rest. Eat, eat, eat. Sit, watch football. Eat, eat, eat. That's how it works. The true champions don't stop at the Thanksgiving meal either. After gorging themselves on thousands of calories, they pack up the remaining leftovers and prepare them for the next several days. I have a friend who cooks two turkeys every Thanksgiving; one for the meal itself, and one for the following week.

It's ironic that we take the opportunity to give thanks as an opportunity to overindulge in food. The average American consumes 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving day. That's the equivalent of eating 16.5 Snickers bars. No wonder we feel almost satisfied. The sacred word that describes this phenomenon is gluttony, which means the over-indulgence and over-consumption of food, drink, or intoxicants to the point of waste. Anyone disagree that this happens on Thanksgiving?

Gluttony and gratitude are mutually exclusive. The most popularized glutton is Augustus Gloop, the fat German kid from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. You may remember him in the movie, stuffing more and more candy into his chubby cheeks--eating the candy grass, scooping out the innards of the candy mushrooms, and finally drinking from the chocolate river, which expelled him from the Garden of Wonka. It's impossible to think that little Augustus was truly grateful as he rummaged through the endless candy available to him. What a glutton feels is closer to greed.

Which brings us to the next overindulgence of Thanksgiving: Black Friday, the shopping that starts less than 24 hours after we finish stuffing our faces. Right after one overindulgence (gluttony), we switch to our standard mode of operation, greed. This day after Thanksgiving causes so much anxiety and distress that people nickname it, "Black Friday." I turned on the TV briefly before going to work this morning, and I saw a crowd stampeding through the doors of Wal-Mart. I thought to myself, what happened to Thanksgiving?!! These people look like they could kill!

The holidays offer us a chance to show our best: gratitude and generosity. Thanksgiving gives us an opportunity to be grateful, and Christmas gives us an opportunity to be generous. But, unfortunately, we have this horrible disease called being human, and that means we sometimes act gluttonous instead of grateful, and greedy instead of generous.

Perhaps, the only cure for this disease is an awareness of what we're doing. It's not too late to redeem this holiday season by asking what have I already received that I'm grateful for, instead of what more do I need to finally make myself happy?