When in Rome, eat turkey

During the decline and eventual fall of the Roman empire, nearly every day of the year was a holiday. One of the chief ways the Romans would celebrate holidays was by having games of some sort in the coliseums. Whether it was a chariot race, a gladiatorial battle or a good old feeding of the Christians to the lions, the holidays were marked mainly by the athletic spectacles that took place on them.

So what does Thanksgiving day mean to you? If you are a typical American, it means being with (not necessarily getting along with) many members of your family, eating profusely and...watching football. That a holiday originally intended to mark the gratitude each and every one of us should have for our basic survival could be corrupted and transformed into a veritable Roman holiday tells you something about American culture.

The Romans, too, celebrated by eating vast quantities of food, which they would then proceed to vomit right back up. Now, not everyone in America is bulimic, but by and large, America is a country that reflects its world dominance and vast wealth in terms of waist size. The United States is the fattest country in the world, and perhaps the most sport-obsessed, as well. Where do these two seemingly unrelated facts intersect? On Thanksgiving, of course.

Thanksgiving unites the Roman-cum-American ideas of gorging oneself on food and following it up with a healthy dose of athletic viewing, or vice versa. Just as holidays did in Roman times, Thanksgiving has lost whatever meaning it once may have had and had it replaced by the "Bread and Circus."

Likewise, the American cultural memory of Thanksgiving is one of a sporting nature. Ask many Americans what connection William Bradford has with Thanksgiving and they're likely to say, "Yeah, didn't he play offensive tackle for the Cowboys?" Memories of family and friends fade away, as does the cultural significance of the holiday. But sharp as a tack in many peoples' minds is the time when Leon Lett fell on the live ball after the Cowboys blocked a field goal to come within seconds of beating the Dolphins, only to have Miami come right back and kick another, more successful field goal. Can't you just see the snow lightly coating the Astroturf in the stadium of your mind?

Many would argue that Thanksgiving's contemporary significance cannot be questioned; it is, after all, an American holiday. As such, does it not stand for everything that makes the United States such a great country? That is not, however, a tolerable assertion.

However troubled and awful the overwhelming majority of history between Europeans and Native Americans is, the story of Thanksgiving was and is a shining exception, an example of cooperation and genuine gratitude between peoples. And that has been replaced by football, a sport which still boasts teams whose nicknames are very offensive to Native Americans-the Washington Redskins and Kansas City Chiefs, for instance. John Madden's six-legged turkey and a vague conception of the Pilgrims is what most people take away from an average Thanksgiving, perhaps added to memories of giant balloons floating down the streets of New York in the annual Macy's parade.

But little can be done to restore the cultural integrity of the day. In addition to being a primarily sports-controlled holiday, it is a key milestone in the Christmas shopping season. The day after Thanksgiving is the busiest shopping day of the year, as consumers flock to shopping malls without having to feel guilty about there being any more holidays before Christmas. To a lesser extent, the Christmas holiday season has become one of sport and food, as well. An American Christmas, in addition to being an orgiastic display of capitalist excess, is about eating yet another giant piece of meat, or three, and then settling down over the next week to digest the feast and watch the college bowl games.

In yet another perversion of the American calendar, the new year no longer begins Jan. 1. No, a year cannot be put to rest until its NFL champion has been crowned. As a consequence, each new year begins on the fourth Monday in January - the day after the Super Bowl.

In this respect, America is an almost unthinkably backwards society, and times like these call for modest proposals. So here it is: feed the Lions to the Romans, and be done with it.