How to Celebrate Thanksgiving in Switzerland
Thanksgiving is a holiday invented after the American Civil War in the hope that it would help bind a divided nation together. After all, while folk may disagree about the merits of slavery and lynching people with dark skin, surely we can all agree on the merits of over-eating and subsequent indigestion.
And so a series of myths were promulgated and All Became Good.
US school children are taught a fabrication in which neurotic genocidal Puritans sat down to share a feast with peaceful Native Americans while the former’s tribal god looked benevolently down on all and sundry as they ate turkey with all the trimmings.
In reality, the Puritans thought the Native Americans they encountered were agents of Satan and thus they ignored all the warnings of coming winter, being certain that their little god would provide. Laying up supplies for winter would be to doubt their god’s provenance and that would be Very Wrong Indeed.
When the first winter came as advertised and the Puritans were consequently starving, it was the Native Americans who unwisely saved the newcomers by sharing their stores of food. This however didn’t disturb the Puritans’ conviction that their helpers were truly Satan’s agents and the following year they played amusing games such as “bury the Indian up to his neck and then kick…
