David McElroy

For some people, holidays evoke images of close, loving families straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. They love their families and cherish the memories of the past and love everything about seeing their families for Thanksgiving.

For others of us, spending time with families sounds like a terrible idea, because it makes us feel lousy and it brings up bad memories of the past. What’s more, family-oriented holidays can be times when there’s an unspoken conspiracy of silence to pretend that the rest of your family’s history never happened.

For those of us who see extended families that way, it’s more Norman Bates than Norman Rockwell.

Another family holiday coming around reminds me again of the fundamental split between these groups. For some people, it’s a wonderful time. For others — including me — it’s just a reminder of families who were more painful than loving.

What’s worse is that most of those who attach pain to family still go through the motions of pretending to be part of something loving and special. But the maudlin things that families say to each other on family-oriented holidays are rarely consistent with how they relate to one another for the rest of the year.

I can never decide whether this inconsistency is sad or funny. I guess it’s both. This is why so much of life is self-satirizing to me. If you had a Norman Rockwell family, that’s great. But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the way others of us feel — because it seems to be considered impolite to admit that the other side of the coin exists.

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If you want to start a fight on this Thanksgiving day, tell someone that you’re going shopping this afternoon. Or tell people who are planning to shop this afternoon that should stay home instead of shopping.

In a debate such as this, there’s remarkably little room for facts or logic or even courtesy. There tends to simply be a lot of anger about people who come to different conclusions — about something as mundane as shopping.

Since there’s so much sniping about holiday shopping — from angry people on various sides — here’s my official notice of neutrality. If you want to shop on Friday (or on Thanksgiving day), I don’t care one way or the other. If you want to get into line and wait in cold and rain for days, that’s fine, too. I don’t understand it and I might make fun of you, but I don’t care.

On the other hand, if you’re angry and offended at people doing those things, I’m not going to join you, even though I find their shopping behavior odd and obsessive, too.

I’m not angry or offended at either side in this ridiculous culture war. I just don’t care what decisions people make for themselves — such as when they work or shop — about something that’s so trivial to me. I’ll just be enjoying my turkey and dressing while others argue about this.

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Progressives tend to talk about supporting choice — until someone wants to make a choice that they disapprove of. That tendency was on display this week with the Obama administration’s decision to ban the trans fats that go into making products such as margarine.

Each side of the decision sees an entirely different question. To the nannies of the coercive state, the question is whether trans fats are good for people. To those of us who believe in personal freedom, the question is whether politicians and bureaucrats have the moral or legal right to make that decision for individuals and companies.

When I was growing up, we ate margarine and fried everything with Crisco shortening. Back then, those products were loaded with the artificial fats that are now considered unhealthy. Some still are. At the time, we were told they were more healthy than natural fats such as butter and lard. I was so accustomed to the taste of margarine that when I finally tried butter, I didn’t like it, simply because it was different from what I was used to.

After I grew up, I learned to appreciate and prefer the taste of butter, but I heard the health nannies declaring that butter and such natural fats were bad for me. I made the decision that I preferred the taste, so it was worth the risk to me. Eventually, I also started reading information that persuaded me that fat wasn’t the enemy that made me overweight and possibly unhealthy. The real enemy was sugar. But the drumbeat from the medical establishment against fat continued.

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