Thanksgiving arrives as a slow countdown in my body, long before the day itself. Right after Halloween, the clock starts ticking toward the trip I used to dread: the performance of family, the forced fake gratitude. There’s an ick that rises—an embarrassment of being associated with a holiday that glorifies denial.
My earliest memories aren’t of warmth, but of my mom yelling in the kitchen, stressed and exhausted, cooking for a celebration none of us really felt. For years, it seemed normal to gather, to pretend, to call strain “tradition.” Eventually, I couldn’t unsee the truth anymore: Thanksgiving in America is built on the trauma of our ancestors.
Thanksgiving as we celebrate it in the US is trash–just stay with me.
I didn’t know Thanksgiving was trash until I got older. My mom didn’t realize how problematic it was until recently, either. When I was growing up, I didn’t have access to the internet like we do now, so learning the truth about this so-called holiday wasn’t easy. It must have been a teacher who told me.
I was taught not to ask questions. My mother’s idea of safety was to fit into a very specific box—and she liked making Thanksgiving out of a box, too. Ironically, the holiday felt best when we spent it at someone else’s house, with a wider variety of food and a broader sense of family.
Deconstructing my internalized whiteness.
As someone adopted and raised in a white family, I’m still unlearning my white behaviors. It often feels like I’m choosing between the comfort of familiar traditions and the opportunity to redefine what this season means on my terms. When I’m not forcing myself into the stale box of white expectations, something more honest emerges.
I’ve been exploring my ancestry and reclaiming my identity. I’m pushing back against what was forced on me: the obligation to show up to family gatherings even when they cause harm, to celebrate a holiday with genocidal roots, and to sacrifice my wellbeing just to prove “love.”
Now, it’s hard to think of Thanksgiving as anything other than gross.
Celebrating family and gratitude shouldn’t require a holiday attached to genocide. And yet, critiquing Thanksgiving—or Columbus Day—is seen as unpatriotic. This is the same America that insists on saying “Merry Christmas” despite the many holidays honored in winter.
So how do we celebrate Thanksgiving without acknowledging its genocidal history?
For years, I traveled back to Vermont to cram Thanksgiving and Christmas into one trip. I hated it. The whole thing felt performative. We pretended we were a close family, just as America pretended Thanksgiving was a holy day.
Making Thanksgiving Mine. (Without all that colonizer bullshit)
Over the past few years, I’ve been spending the holiday with my partner’s family instead. With them, the focus genuinely is family. We share a home-cooked meal, go out together, or play games—because connection is a value they live, not perform.
From their example, I’ve learned that family shows up not just for the celebrations, but for the mundane and emotional in-betweens. That kind of care doesn’t require bleeding yourself dry to prove loyalty. It’s rooted in love, not performance.
Sure, maybe we won’t collectively rename this holiday.
But Thanksgiving can still be a “yes, and—”
Like your favorite improv comedian says: “yes, and—.” We don’t have to take things as they are. We can acknowledge and learn. Acknowledge and feel. Acknowledge and mourn.
We can be better than those who came before us by saying:
- Yes, gratitude. And…
- Be grateful to the land.
- Learn the cost of why we say “Thanksgiving” at all.
- Understand the privileges we now hold and the blood those privileges were built on.
- Read articles, listen to Indigenous voices, and talk to your community.
- Support Indigenous people—not just during the holiday, but all year.
- Volunteer locally.
- Practice gratitude every day, not just once a year.
Thanksgiving doesn’t have to be a performance. It can be a reckoning. It can be a return. It can be a choice.
