“Hey Uncle Buck, could you please pass me the mashed potatoes? I need to put about a pound of them on my plate next to the turkey legs. You know, it is Thanksgiving after all.”

Uncle Buck gladly passes you the homemade, buttery mashed potatoes as you eye his obnoxious, red-deer sweater that he seemingly pulled out of a magic wardrobe just in time for Thanksgiving and other holidays.

As comical as it seems, this really isn’t an odd sight: Americans eating inordinate amounts of food during the holidays with their uncles wearing funny-looking red sweaters. The comedian and habitual overeater Jim Gaffigan said it best: “Thanksgiving, it’s like we didn’t even try to come up with a holiday tradition. The tradition is we overeat … How about a Thanksgiving where we eat a lot? What if we eat a lot of [food] with people that annoy the hell out of us?”

Not only do we eat an insane amount of food during the holidays, especially during Thanksgiving, but it is with people that annoy us. I’m sorry Uncle Buck, but you and your deer sweaters have to return to Kansas.

I have a double dose of food during the holidays. Obviously, my family eats a lot during Thanksgiving. This is a known fact to all. Secondly, we are of Greek descent so that is another notch my family adds to our belt. We Greeks basically equate food with happiness. It’s generally the mainstay of our culture. For instance, if my dinner plate does not look as if a dog has licked it clean, then either I am sick, dying, or something is generally wrong with me. The solution to all of these is … You guessed it. More food for me.

Generally, I believe that eating together during the holidays with family and friends is a great tradition that Americans should cherish and keep going as long as we can. But we don’t need to eat until we become comatose from those six turkey legs and gravy.

Now, if I can just put this delicious turkey sandwich down.

Danny Peters is a junior psychology major from Fort Worth.