Charles Jensen | Writer

Willow: What a load of horse hooey.

Buffy: We have a counterpoint?

Willow: Yeah. Thanksgiving isn’t about blending of 2 cultures. It’s about one culture wiping out another. And then they make animated specials about the part where, with the maize and the big, big belt buckles. They don’t show you the next scene, where all the bison die and Squanto takes a musket ball in the stomach.

Buffy: Ok. Now, for some of that, you were channeling your mother?

Willow: Well, yeah, sort of. That’s why she doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving or Columbus Day–you know, the destruction of the indigenous peoples. I know it sounds a little overwrought, but really, she’s…She’s right.

Buffy: Yeah. I guess I never really thought about it that way. With mom at Aunt Darlene’s this year, I’m not getting a Thanksgiving. Maybe it’s just as well.

Anya: Well, I think that’s a shame. I love a ritual sacrifice.

Buffy: It’s not really a one of those.

Anya: To commemorate a past event, you kill and eat an animal. It’s a ritual sacrifice, with pie.

[And later…]

Willow: Buffy, earlier you agreed with me about Thanksgiving. It’s a sham. It’s all about death.

Buffy: It is a sham, but it’s a sham with yams. It’s a yam sham.