Along with millions of turkeys, the concept of a simple family Thanksgiving is dying or dead.
Not to be morose at the onset of the holiday season, but I am struck this year -- more than ever before -- on the impact of technology on what used to be a simple family holiday. We are stuffing ourselves with information and chatter.
Pinterest boards are a veritable cornucopia of recipes, cutesy notecards, quotes of thankfullness, and Thanksgiving-related infographics. Very festive, but potentially distracting as I feel compelled to re-pin and like.
Black Friday sales and deals are being blasted-out via e-mail along with insider tips and maps, contributing to retail frenzy. Shoppers will be checking in, hashtagging, and posting their purchases on Instagram.
I needed to find a recipe for cranberry sauce. What to do? I no longer pull The Joy of Cooking or my well-worn Betty Crocker cookbook off my shelf. I Googled "cranberry sauce" and was deluged with 500 variations, along with rankings, comments, and the ability to download my favorites into my Cloud-based recipe file. I suppose, on some level, reading the opinions of the strangers who rated the recipes may prevent a mealtime disaster, but at the end of the day, I care more about what my friends and family think than the rating of a random member of the "cooking community."
My favorite technology this holiday week? It's quite simple. It's not my iPhone or my iPad or any of the myriad apps on them. It's my GPS -- a rather old model at that -- whose soothing British voice will connect me to real people in the real world, as I travel to the "feast."
And, as shocking as it may seem to my Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and blog subscribers, I plan to sit down at the Thanksgiving table 2012, totally unplugged.
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