American Thanksgiving has always been one of those days that gets me a little down, and 2025 was no exception.
As a Canadian, seeing the parades and NFL football games always makes me feel like a second-class North American citizen. And hearing about serving a 10-person Thanksgiving feast for 10 cents always makes me sadly jealous, too1.
And these days, I don’t even get to enjoy Letterman calling the 1-800 Butterball Talk-Line for turkey-roasting guidance!
Somehow, I gobbled on
While I should have been smelling the turkey roasting and hearing the delicious sounds of a busy kitchen, I was simply sitting at my desk, listening to clementines and snacking on bad radio.
But then I looked out the window, and fluffy white snowflakes were slowly falling on a slate-grey Canadian world. I decided to type in a few words, forcing myself to be somewhat productive.
I typed in a couple of hundred words, but they were a slate-grey shade of meh, too. At least I was underway, though. copied my words into Grammarly, then changed the tone to Corporate and experimented with a couple more AI toys.
Of course, I eventually ended up in ChatGPT land.
My warm-up words involved tricolour miniature marshmallows, Gummi Bears, ammonia, beanbag chairs, and pyjamas. I also imagined that each snowflake contained an entire universe, with people and creatures whose idea of infinity lasted from the moment they left a cloud until they melted on whatever they landed on.
Before I knew it, I had an idea for a story. A highly successful female CEO who is looking out the windows of her corner office in a more polished version of a slate grey world. She’s wondering if she has enough cocaine to make it through Thanksgiving weekend. Compounding her troubles is the fact that her wife is leaving her for a male chimney sweep with a lengthy list of allegations against him so distasteful that they are mentioned only in hushed tones, if at all.
Suddenly my Thanksgiving Present arrived via AI
I had a nice discussion with ChatGPT about all this, and the bot created a lot of decent content, some of it pretty good and almost lol.
Then, out of the wild blue cyber yonder, ChatGPT asked me if I would like it to write a chapter from the snowflakes’ point of view!
Well, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, it will be a happy Thanksgiving after all!
Hindsight is Turkey/Turkey
Looking back, I think I was thinking of Carla Connor from Coronation Street when dreaming of the CEO, and the copy that ChatGPT produced reminded me of the SCTV recurring skit “The Days of the Week”, which was a spoof of soap operas.
- (November 20, 2025). 2025 Thanksgiving cost drops – but at a price. Axios. https://www.axios.com/local/richmond/2025/11/21/2025-thanksgiving-price-without-mashed-potatoes ↩︎
Perry's Pen 
Leave a comment