Top 5 Ways to Keep the Thanksgiving Spirit Alive

Nostalgic for Thanksgiving already? Who can blame you? It isn't every day when you can throw dietary restrictions to the wind and tear into the carcass of a big, fat bird (not to mention a big, fat bottle or three of blood red wine). But really, why let that buzzed, bloated feeling fade away? You don't have to, and here's how not to surrender to the other 364 days of the year that aren't Thanksgiving:

5. Go to Bakeman's for lunch and order a turkey sandwich. What looks like a Wonder Bread soup kitchen is really a subterranean palace of hand-crafted classics. And the dark-meat turkey sandwich--slathered with mayo, naturally--is so good it'll make you forget you're sick of turkey. You'll need a script--"dark on dark, mayo & lettuce, for here"-- if you intend to escape the wraith of owner Jason Wang, who will not only flip you shit if you're slow, but also try and talk you into buying every available dessert and side if you don't shut him down immediately.

4. Start drinking Wild Turkey at 1 p.m. on a Thursday. We can't imagine this will go over very well at most places at work, and we wouldn't recommend it for those who earn their keep by operating heavy machinery or a Metro bus (Route 7 drivers excepted). Drop the "h" and you've correctly got "Tanksgiving," and the workingman's whiskey will remind you what you're celebrating once you're fully in the bag.

3. Eat a gargantuan dinner at 3, turn on a boring football game, and nod off in an easy chair. The Seahawks play the Rams Sunday, which would be perfect were it not for the fact that it's a morning game. But dread not: the UW-WSU Crapple Cup is Saturday at 3:30. Paydirt!

2. Drop hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, at a tribal casino. One thing Thanksgiving lacks is a sufficient amount of white guilt. If you're Caucasian, then, get your ass to a tribal casino, start by dropping at least $50 at the buffet, then continue by dropping hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars at various games of chance. If you happen to win, donate the dough to a charity that supports Native American health care, education, or job training. It's really the least you can do considering what your ancestors did to theirs, and nowhere near enough.

1. Devour an entire supermarket rotisserie chicken by yourself while watching Home for the Holidays. Turkey's great and all, but chicken's more American. And those little birds in the plastic shells look a lot like turkey anyway. As for the movie, it's simply the best Thanksgiving-themed dramedy ever made. It features Robert Downey Jr. at his most manically creative, probably because director Jodie Foster let him hard-drug it to his heart's content while on set. Cast as the long-gone gay son, Downey's chemistry with Holly Hunter, who plays his sister, is extraordinary, Charles Durning is perfectly cast as the jovial dad, and Steve Guttenberg and Cynthia Stevenson nail their roles as the uptight suburban couple. (There's also a spectacular cameo from the great David Strathairn as a sad-sack handyman.) Whether your family is the most functional or dysfunctional in the world, this flick will make you laugh and cry. It's impossible not to love even in its messiest moments, just like family.