bonus
Thanksgiving is made up. You don't owe ANYONE a turkey!
To be honest, I’ve hit my limit with holiday guilt and the weird pressure to act like everything’s cosy and magical just because the calendar says so. Holidays are made up. They only exist if you get paid time off or you genuinely enjoy them… and most people don’t.
In this episode, I’m pulling the curtains back on the whole thing.
The family expectations.
The traditions no one even likes.
The so-called “peacekeeping” that’s really just self-abandonment.
This one’s a little ranty, a little chaotic, and probably the most comforting thing you’ll hear all season.
Let’s talk about ditching guilt, skipping the bullshit, and building holidays that don’t make you want to scream.
Transcript
Holidays are made up.
Speaker:Holidays don't exist.
Speaker:The only time they exist
Speaker:if you get the day off work or you get holiday pay, in which
Speaker:case, yes, absolutely they're real and they're the realest and you
Speaker:deserve them a hundred percent.
Speaker:But outside of that, like holidays don't exist.
Speaker:We have created this entire social structure around
Speaker:This idea of things
Speaker:you are required to observe to either be a good person or
Speaker:a good member of a family, or
Speaker:a good whatever.
Speaker:All of it's bullshit.
Speaker:We made it all up.
Speaker:So
Speaker:you don't want to cook a Turkey for people, you barely, like,
Speaker:you don't have to cook a Turkey.
Speaker:And if
Speaker:if
Speaker:don't want to spend time with family members who
Speaker:Vote
Speaker:against your human rights.
Speaker:You don't have
Speaker:do that.
Speaker:And
Speaker:if you are spending time
Speaker:your family to quote unquote keep the peace,
Speaker:that is not
Speaker:That's a temporary ceasefire.
Speaker:You don't have to do it.
Speaker:There's
Speaker:idea that like we absolutely have to spend time with people who might be
Speaker:objectively harmful to us because there is
Speaker:this like holiday and holidays are the times you spend with family.
Speaker:You don't have to do that.
Speaker:If
Speaker:family's
Speaker:trash, you
Speaker:you don't.
Speaker:If
Speaker:need
Speaker:family, I promise
Speaker:I will nag you on their behalf.
Speaker:you can reach out to me.
Speaker:I will make
Speaker:that you've eaten.
Speaker:I
Speaker:make sure you
Speaker:wear your coat.
Speaker:I will
Speaker:sure you wear socks, which
Speaker:is something I won't even
Speaker:for
Speaker:myself.
Speaker:I don't wear
Speaker:coats
Speaker:I don't own
Speaker:socks.
Speaker:I'll literally
Speaker:outside and like zero degree weather without a coat because I enjoy it.
Speaker:So, but I'll make
Speaker:you wear a coat and I'll make sure you are not cold and I'll make sure that
Speaker:you have eaten something and I'll accept you exactly as you are unless you're
Speaker:a big giant butthead, in which case
Speaker:I will still accept you as you are.
Speaker:But I don't have to invite you into my family because my family
Speaker:is, well, no, my family is full of giant buttheads, but like my chosen
Speaker:family is not, it's different.
Speaker:It's different.
Speaker:I can't pick my family, but I pick day family and they're great.
Speaker:So you can be part of my family and I will.
Speaker:Give you all of the love and adoration
Speaker:you deserve, that you don't get from the who fill up your.
Speaker:family tree.
Speaker:And I'm sorry
Speaker:that.
Speaker:I'm sorry that you don't have a nuclear family that treats you the way you
Speaker:deserve to be treated and that loves you the way you deserve to be loved.
Speaker:I love you if that's enough and I can probably find a hundred
Speaker:people you don't even know who also love you,
Speaker:you deserve to be loved,
Speaker:but
Speaker:also
Speaker:There is nothing that you have to do.
Speaker:The only thing you have to do is.
Speaker:pay taxes and get your driver's license renewed.
Speaker:If you wanna drive a car,
Speaker:like those are things you have to do.
Speaker:You probably have
Speaker:pay your bills, you probably have to pay your electric bill.
Speaker:you probably have to do those things, but like.
Speaker:Putting
Speaker:plant inside your house and hanging ship from it, you don't have to do that.
Speaker:You
Speaker:can if you want to,
Speaker:you enjoy that, you can.
Speaker:You don't have to, you don't have to bake
Speaker:cookies
Speaker:you don't like.
Speaker:You don't, I watch my mother-in-law do this every year.
Speaker:They have all
Speaker:these traditions,
Speaker:which Somebody on LinkedIn said to me yesterday that traditions are
Speaker:just guilt from dead people, which
Speaker:fantastic
Speaker:A plus.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:But my mother-in-law and she likes doing it well, I don't actually
Speaker:know that she likes doing it.
Speaker:She does it, she feels bad when she doesn't do it.
Speaker:And I think she likes not feeling bad more than she likes relaxing.
Speaker:So there's that.
Speaker:But I watch her
Speaker:her make.
Speaker:Tons and tons of things that are like family traditions that
Speaker:she has to do every single year.
Speaker:She has to do them exactly the same.
Speaker:And if she misses one thing, somebody freaks out and
Speaker:it's like a whole ass thing.
Speaker:And
Speaker:it's so much work and it exhausts her she is exhausted by the time
Speaker:she's on the other side of whatever part of the process that she's in.
Speaker:and she doesn't even like a lot of the stuff that she makes.
Speaker:She just makes it 'cause it's tradition.
Speaker:And
Speaker:year I'm like, you know, you don't have to do this.
Speaker:And every year she's like, yes I do.
Speaker:I have to do it for my children.
Speaker:No, you don't.
Speaker:Your children are grown ass
Speaker:Give 'em a recipe,
Speaker:they
Speaker:figure the fuck out.
Speaker:And also
Speaker:children would tell her that.
Speaker:So it's like, it's fine.
Speaker:Some, some of 'em actually have figured it out, so it's okay,
Speaker:but like.
Speaker:There is nothing
Speaker:about.
Speaker:The last two months of this year, if you're in the US you know that
Speaker:as soon as we hit the middle of November, it's basically January
Speaker:because all it is is holiday
Speaker:shit from November 15th, basically.
Speaker:Actually, really once you hit
Speaker:Halloween, as soon as Halloween is over, it's like it's crystal snow and I'm
Speaker:just realizing like I'm rattling off a whole bunch of quote unquote holidays
Speaker:that like are basically uniquely.
Speaker:United States things.
Speaker:So I'm
Speaker:here that outside of the country you guys like get the last half of the year.
Speaker:Like you get to have it.
Speaker:We don't.
Speaker:We wrap it into all this
Speaker:shit
Speaker:that makes everybody miserable.
Speaker:I have never met anybody who is excited and I'm sure this person exists.
Speaker:This maybe representative of the people who
Speaker:I attract
Speaker:my own relationship with my family,
Speaker:I will
Speaker:completely own up to that,
Speaker:but I
Speaker:never met anybody who's like, yeah, Thanksgiving.
Speaker:I mean, aside from all of the horrible implications of Thanksgiving,
Speaker:the people who have
Speaker:family things are stressed about the big family things.
Speaker:The
Speaker:who don't have big family things
Speaker:often feel bad
Speaker:that they don't have big family things like
Speaker:it is all made up.
Speaker:None of the things that we quote unquote celebrate on
Speaker:Thanksgiving actually happened.
Speaker:We stole
Speaker:bunch of land from a bunch of indigenous people.
Speaker:That's what we did, and we eat Turkey and corn as a result of
Speaker:this horrible thing that we did.
Speaker:You do not have to observe it.
Speaker:You can skip it.
Speaker:You can skip
Speaker:it and still watch trash hallmark movies
Speaker:because they don't require any brain power.
Speaker:You
Speaker:still escape to a Christmas tree farm in rural Connecticut.
Speaker:Does Connecticut even have rural?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:That's where I'm assuming.
Speaker:Maybe it's rural Tennessee.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:But you can still escape to an imaginary Christmas tree farm that
Speaker:somebody took over after he decided
Speaker:quit his job as an investment banker
Speaker:to only remeet
Speaker:the love of his life
Speaker:in the middle of that random Christmas tree farm that she's not
Speaker:supposed to be at because she's running away from her fiance.
Speaker:That's the plot of every movie.
Speaker:You
Speaker:still enjoy that bad movie because I am not here for obligatory traditions,
Speaker:but I'm here for bad movies.
Speaker:You could pick and choose
Speaker:which
Speaker:of this are important to you, and it, none of it has to be important.
Speaker:And if you are without a
Speaker:who loves you and respects you and treats you well this time of
Speaker:year, which you absolutely deserve
Speaker:one, you can come
Speaker:part of mine or two.
Speaker:I've heard of
Speaker:a lot
Speaker:really cool organizations that like put people together for the holidays
Speaker:a googly and see if there's one of those around you.
Speaker:And if you have any questions, there's like 7,000 ways you can reach us
Speaker:on the podcast page so we can help
Speaker:connect you to things.
Speaker:But I'm just saying.
Speaker:Staying home in your soft pants or your even softer pants or your no pants,
Speaker:totally fine.
Speaker:, rather than doing things that you've been told you're supposed to do, but
Speaker:nobody can tell you why other than the fact that you're supposed to do them is
Speaker:akay.
Speaker:There is no metal.
Speaker:For tolerating bullshit from people who don't treat you well and you
Speaker:are allowed to skip all of it
Speaker:if you like.
Speaker:I
Speaker:have had a year
Speaker:so hellish that the idea of.
Speaker:Procedural academic work in
Speaker:name of tradition makes you wanna full vomit.
Speaker:Skip it world outside is a toxic hellscape.
Speaker:Find something you enjoy and do that instead.
Speaker:Thanks for being here guys.
Speaker:Have a good day.
Speaker:Love you meeting.
