WARNING: This is a satirical piece. Any and all activities described in the article should not be attempted in a large family setting or any setting. Many of these activities are either illegal in the eyes of the United States judicial system or do not invoke the Thanksgiving holiday feeling of thankfulness or togetherness.
Thanksgiving is the often-overlooked holiday at the end of the year, especially when compared to Halloween and Christmas. While candy, costumes, and presents are not the main staple, there is a lot to value in Thanksgiving.
It’s one of those special and rare opportunities for the entire family to sit around and enjoy each other’s company – unless you absolutely despise each and every one of them. Then, it’s a miserable and nightmarish experience that only the overindulgence of turkey and two bottles of wine can cure, lulling you into a substance-induced coma for six hours only to be woken by your significant other or, worse, the dog licking the leftover gristle on the corner of your mouth, all the while hoping you didn’t say anything too insensitive about your sister-in-law’s noticeable weight gain in between your seventh and eighth glass of cabernet.
Truly a time to be thankful.
Nevertheless, whether you love them or hate them, you’ve stuck with them for the entire day. So, why not pass the time with fun activities that the entire family can enjoy. Ghost City has provided you with some of the best Thanksgiving activities that every family member of all ages can join in and have fun.
Nothing screams Thanksgiving like a turkey, and nothing screams like a turkey about to have its head chopped off for Thanksgiving. It is a staple of the holiday, the dry, tasteless main dish of a course that mainly consists of starches, casseroles, and cranberry sauce that no one likes despite never trying.
And, we all know that we just pick at the food until someone musters up the courage to throw their plate away first so we can all clamber up to the dessert table and gorge ourselves on pumpkin pie and Aunt Mildred’s brownies. You know, the ones with the sugar on top.
Anyways, it’s usually customary for the man of the house to carve up the bird and pass around slices. Now, that may have been all fine and dandy in 1950s suburbia when Thanksgiving was just Mom and Dad and the little ones as the dog looks onward, waiting for someone to drop a bit of turkey on the floor.
But this is the 21st century. It’s no longer Thanksgiving with just the family, it’s Thanksgiving with the ENTIRE family. Twenty cousins, five pairs of aunts and uncles, some filing for the divorce, some about to file for divorce, thirteen grandchildren, and grandpa who at this point will outlive everyone in the room.
Needless to say, there’s a lot of men in the house. Who’s supposed to cut the turkey? Obviously, it should be Milton who actually owns and lives in the house that Thanksgiving is being hosted at this year. But then you have bruised egos, like Jett, who’s the host’s brother-in-law, who killed, plucked, and cooked the turkey himself because Milton’s wife Susan was NOT going through the hassle again after last year’s fiasco with the turkey. Jett even brought his own cutting knife because of course he did.
But then there’s also grandpa, who’s been cutting the turkey for years when Susan was a child and this may be grandpa's last Thanksgiving and she wants him to be the one to cut the turkey before he goes and she’s been crying about it all evening before everyone else got here.
But then you have little Timmy who’s eight and doesn’t know any better and just wants to be able to hack into something big with a big knife.
It’s a lot, right? So, who gets to carve the turkey?
Well, we at Ghost City have the perfect activity to decide who gets to be the one to do it. Of course, you can have all the men put their names in a hat and draw. But that’s not really a fun, family activity.
Rather, all the men compete in a gladiatorial battle royal where they must fight to the death in order to claim the responsibility of carving the turkey. There can only be one victor. All the men can join in on the fun, Milton, Jett, and even little Timmy can prove himself in the midst of the bloodsoaked battleground of the living room. You know grandpa is going to cheat and bring out the service weapon he’s kept on him since the war underneath his wheelchair. But that’s what keeps the activity fun and exciting.
And once the smoke and viscera have been cleared away, the last remaining man will be able to finally start dinner and carve into that delicious lobster because this is a traditional Thanksgiving dinner and we all know the First Thanksgiving actually served seafood and not turkey.
Everyone knows that after Thanksgiving dinner, the family is full of turkey and stuffing and no one is particularly keen on doing much of anything. Some will no doubt sleep, the rational ones will help clean up, and the men, at least the one still alive, will be in the living room either sleeping, not helping clean up, or doing the traditional pastime of Thanksgiving – watching football.
After all, nothing says thankfulness like watching 40 men in the cold throwing their full body weight at each other, not having Thanksgiving dinner with their families. All the while you sit there in your warm recliner, full and fat off of gristle and corn.
Other families, abnormal families, will spend their TV time actually watching the Macy’s Day parade despite the fact that no one has actually sat down to watch the parade at home since 1973.
Here at Ghost City, we believe one of the more overlooked aspects of television during Thanksgiving is the entire family sitting down and watching a Thanksgiving movie.
Some of you are probably scratching your head, trying to figure out if there has ever been even one single Thanksgiving film. While it’s true that Halloween has its horror movies, and Christmas has more films being produced on Netflix than the former Soviet Union used to produce atomic bombs, there is a small smattering of Thanksgiving films out there to enjoy for the whole family.
And nothing is more Thanksgiving than sitting down with everyone and watching Night of the Living Dead.
Possibly the most Thanksgiving film to ever exist because nothing screams Thanksgiving more than a group of people in one home arguing and wanting to kill each other while a ravenous hunger looming in the background trying to get in.
And, really, who doesn’t want to see a group of undead surround and tear and eat the flesh of a hapless victim alive after just finishing off enough food for three people?
Hard to tell who’s greener, your family or the zombies?
Besides the eating and the tv watching, there isn’t really any other big activity that the family does together. Usually, everyone breaks off into groups. This is after the vomit gets cleaned up after the movie. The dads continue to watch football, if there are any left, the moms talk in the kitchen, the kids go to someone else’s room to play, and the teenagers leave to wait in line for three hours for headphones that will ultimately be snatched out of their hands only for that person to be trampled to death.
Truly such a thankful time.
But not to worry, we at Ghost City have the perfect activity to bring everyone back into the living room for many hours of enjoyment.
A board game.
Now, a board game can be a fun and lively time with the family, filled with laughs and good comradery. But most of the time, it’s filled with shouting, cheating, being caught cheating, a flipped over a table, the inevitable appearance of the police due to a noise complaint, and at least two people sleeping on the couch later that night.
Heaven forbid that anyone suggests monopoly or charades, we have the perfect game in mind for those families who can’t make up their minds and the shouting has already taken place.
An ouija board.
Thanksgiving is all about family, right? And spending time with family. The problem is that all the family isn’t there. Some decided to go to another Thanksgiving dinner. Others decided to take a trip to Europe despite the fact that you messaged them in October about it and they definitely said that they would be there and when you try to call them they would say something about something coming up and they couldn’t make it but they would definitely be there next and they are sending hugs and kisses.
But some, unfortunately, have passed on and they had their final Thanksgiving with the family two years ago.
With the ouija board, you can contact your deceased relatives and have another wonderful Thanksgiving with them again.
Want to finally know Great Aunt Marge’s banana pudding recipe? Ouija board her to find out. Want to know why Grandpa Mitchel wrote you out of his will five years ago? The ouija board will let you know. Want to talk to your long-dead mother and ask her why you were never good enough for her and why your sister always got everything while you got nothing and you had to fight your way into having a successful career and life to try and win any sort of love and connection? We suggest therapy.
If you’re feeling adventurous, you could try light candles, hold hands, and try to summon a pagan god of old that may have influenced the first thanksgiving based on harvest feasts that took place during ancient Celtic times.
You’ve already spilled blood on the unhallowed ground and invited evil inside your home by partaking in a horror movie watch, it should be easy to summon.
Just whatever you do, don’t summon Milton or Jett or you’ll never hear the end of how they could have won.
Thanksgiving can be a long, eventful day. You’ve visited with loved ones, you’ve eaten, you partook in a blood sport, you summoned a malevolent entity. At this point, the sun’s beginning to set, the air is getting colder, things are dying down.
Why not relax with your remaining family outside and partake in our last activity which will surely make this Thanksgiving one to remember.
Some families will build a nice fire to combat the cold air, sit around it and tell stories or roast some marshmallows. Now, while that is a wonderful way to end off a wonderful Thanksgiving, you always do something even better.
Instead of building a simple campfire, why not build a massive pyre to sacrifice the family’s youngest to appease the pagan gods.
Of course it would be little Timmy to be nobly sacrificed; he did get to carve the lobster after all. His mother should be so proud.