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Nov. 25, 2016
Don’t get me wrong, I love Thanksgiving. I love getting a break from classes, eating loads of food and spending time with my old friends. However, more than any of these things, my absolute favorite part of the holiday is the chance to sit down with my family and appreciate the things that we’re most thankful for; it’s a great opportunity to reflect on all the good in our lives. Something was different this year, though. Something was wrong. When my dad got up to give the Thanksgiving toast, in addition to saying how thankful he was for our family and the food on the table, he finished his toast with, “but most of all, I’m thankful for Academy Award nominee Greg Kinnear.”
I laughed, thinking that my dad had made a joke, but as I looked around at my family members nodding soberly, I realized that this was no laughing matter. Little did I know, this was not the last I was going to hear of Screen Actor’s Guild Award winner Greg Kinnear that night. As we went around the table and shared what we were thankful for, his name appeared again and again; my mom referred to him as a “national treasure” while my grandfather called his performance in Baby Mama “the finest piece of acting I’ve seen in my 84 years on Earth.” My aunt was the most emotional of all, tearfully stating that she was “overcome with thankfulness for the love and support of her family, and also for Greg Kinnear’s standout performance in 2012’s Stuck in Love, which gave [her] the strength to carry on through [her] ongoing battle with colitis.” When my cousin loudly exclaimed that “all we need in this life is love, family, and a healthy appreciation for the filmography of Daytime Emmy Award Winning actor and former game show host Greg Kinnear,” I had the only dry eyes in the room. It was disorienting to say the least.
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Mr. Kinnear or his work. As Good as it Gets is a classic, and I like Little Miss Sunshine just as much as the next guy. In fact, I even enjoyed seeing him alongside Miley Cyrus in Julie Anne Robinson’s The Last Song in a guilty pleasure sort of way. However, and again I mean no disrespect, why my family chose to consistently express their thankfulness for Greg Kinnear is a complete mystery to me. In fact, why they appear to love Mr. Kinnear with the same intensity that they love the food that they eat and the air that they breathe is basically beyond my comprehension, but I suppose that you have to take your loved ones as they are. No family is perfect, and every family has their issues; I guess that mine’s is that everybody is really, really into Blockbuster Entertainment Award nominee Gregory Buck Kinnear.
This is a reality that I’m going to have to come to terms with. As I write this, my family is still sloppily yet emphatically toasting Kinnear, and they show no signs of slowing down. While I may not understand this newfound appreciation of Greg Kinnear, I suppose that there are worse things than hearing my loved ones quote their favorite lines from You’ve Got Mail when I ask them what they are most grateful for in the world. It sure is strange, but I love them anyways.
That being said, you should have seen the dirty looks I got when I said that I was thankful for “my family, my security and the enduring works of Richard Dreyfuss.” I guess there’s no accounting for taste.
