Thanksgiving is a magnificent time of year, when everything is decorated in orange and brown, children dress up as Indians and Black Leprechauns - I mean Pilgrims - for school plays, and extended families group together, pick a victim, go to Victim's house and eat all their food and use all their toilet paper with the excuse of "we're family, and we're just happy to see you."

The children run around outside, playing games that usually involve chasing each other, breaking things, and otherwise getting underfoot. The women stress over whether the flowers and other decorations are the right color and whether the food has been cooked to exactly the right texture, and the men take all the comfy chairs and talk about technology, politics, and sports. The teenagers usually find unpopulated corners and try to avoid eye contact with everyone else, especially the older women, who are likely to come over and make comments such as "My, look how much you've grown!" and "How is school going?" Occasionally they'll find a cousin who is close enough to their age that they can discuss the more recent evil deeds of their parents and teachers.

Children between the ages of 3 and 18 have food piled on their plate, whether they ask for it or not, and are expected to eat everything in front of them, no matter how gross it is. Older teenage boys and men eat until their stomachs expand and they have to loosen their belts before their seams burst, wolfing things down so fast they barely taste it. Women daintily eat whatever's left, taking care not to take too much, lest there not be enough for everyone else, even though they see that everyone has had some, and there's still half the pan left. This is their way of saying either "Men are gluttonous pigs" or "This food is disgusting, so I'll eat some to be polite, but to avoid having to eat more, I'll say I'm saving some for everyone else and make sure my children eat large helpings." The children, needless to say, are never very pleased about this.

The best part of Thanksgiving is when all the relatives finally leave - usually leaving tire marks on the grass or flattening a mailbox on the way out - and the Victims get to clean up all the dirty dishes and the crumbs spilled in the couch and the mashed potatoes flung on the walls by the babies and the broken toys and furniture and the Coca-cola that was spilled in the carpet. Fortunately for the Victims, the reason they have a big house is usually because they have children, so at least they don't have to do the actual cleaning.