Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  It’s fun, but not too much fun.  You don’t have to play Charades or bring out the board games.  And that’s a relief, because everyone opts for Trivial Pursuit instead of Monopoly, and the only trivia you know is literary.  

Typical trivia questions will include: what state produces the most turkeys? And what is the capital of Venezuela?  Perhaps I should know the latter – is the U.S. at war with Venezuela or not? – and if Joan Didion were alive, she would know.  I recommend her brilliant novel The Book of Common Prayer, set in a politically unstable country in Central America.

Thanksgiving is a food holiday, more casual than that Saturnalia of food-and-gift holidays, Christmas. But if you’re dining at a friend’s house, you may need a hostess gift: we recommend designer chocolates. Our favorite hostess used to hide the box of chocolates because she “needs a reward” after making pies all week. “Thank you! I’m not sharing, OK?”

If you’re dining at home, you don’t need a hostess gift.  Perhaps someone will bring you day-old flowers, and that’s fine.  But you’re sort of in charge of decor. As usual, you didn’t order a centerpiece.  Can Harry & David overnight one?  No, it’s too late for that.

Don’t put up the old artificial Christmas tree on Thanksgiving.  It depresses everyone: its plastic branches are bent in all directions, and most of the ornaments are lost. The day after Thanksgiving is the official day for putting up Christmas decorations. And all really cool people wait till Christmas Eve.

This year I am not looking forward to the turkey. I gave up poultry, knowing just enough about industrial farms and slaughterhouses to be nauseated.  I’m sure the turkeys suffer the same fate as the chickens, but Captain Nemo won me over by either misquoting Dickens or Louisa May Alcott: “Thanksgiving won’t be Thanksgiving without any turkey.”

It’s only once a year.  

Happy Thanksgiving!