Well, it's Thanksgiving, or Turkey Day, as I prefer to call it. It's not that I'm not thankful---I am, for many things. It's just---who am I suppose to thank?
I know the answer to that question, but it's not an answer I can accept. It isn't rational, and I am a rationalist, a non-believer.

As a non-believer, I can't participate in all the silly rituals of the day---not at the expense of my intellectual integrity. You'll find that I harp on 'intellectual integrity' a great deal. It's important to me; it's all I've got. "I think, therefore I am." My mind is my self. I am my mind. There is nothing else. I cannot defile this mind-self relationship with any silly belief in something called a soul, some imaginary supernatural part of myself, tied inexplicably to some imaginary supernatural being in the sky. Actually, I do participate in one thanksgiving day ritual...I eat. I can gorge myself with the best of them.

It's the preliminaries to the gorging that I find unpalatable. I cannot sit at the table with other people, hold hands, and pray. I cannot, and I will not. They know that I do not share their beliefs. I also know that they ask me to join them (or at least pretend to join them) because they have a genuine concern for something they call my soul. But they're saying, in effect..."just be a hypocrite for a few minutes; it'll make the rest of us feel better." No thanks.
I won't be put in this compromising position anymore.

In the past they've never noticed (with their bowed heads) that my head was not bowed, even if I was joining in the hand-holding; that I did not offer up the obligatory 'Amen'; nor that I was being made extremely uncomfortable; that I was only being polite out of respect for them and their silly beliefs. Well, what about me? To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield...What about respect for me? Not from them, necessarily; but I have to have respect for myself.

As I said, I've tried to be polite. I've tried to time a trip to the bathroom to coincide with the grace-saying, but it doesn't work. They just wait for me. I've been hesitant to stand up for myself, out of consideration for their feelings. Probably, if I were to confront them with the problem, we could work out some sort of mutual solution; but it's easier just to avoid the situation entirely by saying I'm busy or I have other plans for dinner...thanks, but no thanks.

So, I don't do Thanksgiving dinners anymore...at least not religious ones.

I have fond memories of Thanksgivings past---family get-togethers of my childhood, which were never religious in nature. In fact, I don't recall the entire family ever seated at the table together on Thanksgiving. Some would be at the table, the rest in the living room watching television. The important thing in those days was simply that we were together. We had fun. We enjoyed each other's company. There were no affirmations of faith or pronouncements of thanks. It was enough that we were alive and together. We were thankful, yes; but there were no silly public displays of belief in the supernatural.
We believed in each other---in our worth as a family.

Part of the problem today is that some of our family members are missing.
My dad, sister, and nephew have all died. ( I don't like euphamisms...we didn't lose them and they didn't pass away. ) They died, and my mom is in a nursing home, but she, too, is gone because she has dementia, which means that her mind (her self) is gone.

Don't get me wrong. I can still enjoy my remaining family and friends. I just can't enjoy them on occasions where they insist on involving me in their displays of socially acceptable superstition.*
I like them, but I'm not like them.
And I won't pretend to be.

Thankful? Yes. I'm thankful Thanksgiving only comes but once a year.

* I know it's almost impossible to have an original thought these days; but as far as I know,
    this is a term that I have coined---Socially Acceptable Superstition. You'll be hearing it
    a great deal from me, used as a synonym for  religion.
    The occult would be an example of un-socially acceptable superstition.