A food lover's holiday, right?

A lot of holidays revolve around food, I know, but Thanksgiving is sort of the Grand Poobah of them all don't you think? The problem is, the food kind of sucks. Have you ever wondered why no one eats turkey at any other time of year unless they are on a diet and they make turkey burgers? Don't even get me started on the stuffing. It's a pile of soggy bread, people! Mashed potatoes are all well and good. In fact, if I had my druthers I'd eat a whole plate of those and just call it a day. I'm truly thankful that I have a mother in-law who knows how to make good gravy. Gravy is what saves this meal.
When I was a kid we had like 7 vegetable side dishes including brussel sprouts Finkleburg, creamed onions and mashed rutabagas (which we called turnips for some inexplicable reason). All those choices and we still didn't have the yams with marshmallows. Now that's a vegie side I could've supported as a kid. And we were expected to eat 5 out of 7. Maybe this is why I hold a grudge against this holiday to this day even though I am a grown woman and I love my veggies.
There was a time in my 20's when Thankgiving was the celebration it deserved to be. I moved to Madison to live with Sue, my high school BFF (that's Best Friend Forever!), and we decided to become vegan together. A brilliant move considering we were moving to the dairy state and I became a baker four days after I moved here. Of course we instituted the vegan Thanksgiving. We composed a 10 course feast to be prepared on the day of by just the two of us. It was a little ambitious. Somewhere there is a picture of me with a crazed look in my eye brandishing a salad shooter. We were going down in flames and the salad shooter that we'd previously laughed at became the key to quickly mincing tons of mushrooms for duxelles to go in the phyllo pie stuffed with concentrated tomato puree, mushroom duxelles and sauteed spinach. The pie was incredible and the meal was a success.
I guess I miss cooking Thanksgiving dinner.