I’ll never understand why we still eat a meal every year where we limit ourselves to the same ingredients as impoverished 17th century New England peasants.

The holidays are a great time to reunite with friends and family. But out of all the various holidays and gatherings throughout the year, there isn’t a single event that I dread more than Thanksgiving Day. 

Let’s start with the centerpiece of any Thanksgiving meal: the turkey.

Turkey is one of the blandest meats known to man. Even when cooked to perfection, it’s dry and flavorless in comparison to practically all other meats. It’s not worthy of being the core part of the Thanksgiving meal, or any meal for that matter.

At the end of the day, turkey is nothing more than chicken’s dorky kid brother. 

Turkey isn’t the only problem: stuffing fails to improve the meal at all, only offering another dry and boring counterpart to turkey. I’d rather eat actual bread. 

Additionally, the name stuffing has lost all meaning, as stuffing the turkey during cooking is now considered a “health hazard,” according to the USDA. Yikes. 

The other parts of the meal don’t do much to help this problem. Casserole is just outdated. People haven’t eaten casserole outside of Thanksgiving since the Cuban missile crisis. 

Mac and cheese is a relatively new player in the Thanksgiving day line up. While it’s a strong stand-alone player, it simply does not fit into the meal at all, and it really does not go along with any of the other Thanksgiving options.

I’ll give credit where credit is due: mashed potatoes are solid. But the creamy and rich texture of the potatoes only allows you to eat so much before getting flavor fatigue. In the end, the mashed potatoes aren’t enough to save the meal.  

It’s not just the food that’s the issue: 71% of Americans are eating their Thanksgiving meal between the hours of 1 and 5 p.m., according to an Oct. 2018 survey conducted by Statista. 

This early timing implies that for most Americans, Thanksgiving is the main meal of the day—a monstrous combination of lunch and dinner. The Thanksgiving meal does not merit such a break in the “three meals a day” diet structure. 

Maybe I’m all wrong. Maybe I’m some man-child who’s actually just a picky eater. But I think my argument is pretty cut-and-dry, exactly like Thanksgiving food. 

I’d like to end this piece with a message to my mother: Mom, this is nothing against you. You’re an excellent cook. Let’s just do Italian or something next year.