Humor Is How This Cartoonist Is Celebrating Thanksgiving This Year
It’s OK to laugh at your Zoom Thanksgiving set-up.
Illustration by Liz Montague
If you’re planning on celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday virtually this year, cartoonist and illustrator Liz Montague has an important tip for you: Make sure you laugh along the way. “Reframe situations however you need to! A [virtual] Thanksgiving is in no way ideal (or desired really) but laughing at the absurdity of all this is still a laugh at the end of the day and, right now especially, I’ll take any laugh I can get!” the New Yorker contributor says. And honestly, we’re right there with her.
You’re sure to chuckle quite a bit when you lay eyes on the virtual Thanksgiving-themed cartoon she designed for Food Network Magazine’s extra-special November issue (pictured above). After being contacted by Sunny Anderson, the magazine’s first-ever guest editor, Liz got to work designing the colorful cartoon, which cleverly reflects the current moment we all find ourselves in. “My inspiration was all of the incredible people I’ve seen adapting to the unprecedented circumstances we’re living in right now,” Liz says. “Change is hard, especially a bunch of destabilizing changes all at once, so I’m quite proud of us all.”
Chief among those changes is not being able to gather together with friends and family for large celebrations and holidays like Thanksgiving, and instead having to get a bit more creative by connecting with them remotely. It’s a new trend that Liz herself expects her family to take part in. “Usually my two sisters and I come home to South Jersey for the weekend to spend the holiday with my parents,” she shares. “This year, sadly, my sister Olivia and her fiancé, Dylan, won’t be able to come home because they live in Hong Kong, so we’ll be having a bit of Zoom Thanksgiving.”
Despite these changes though, Liz maintains that there’s still a lot to be thankful for, especially when it comes to the future. “I think where we're heading is going to be much better than where we’ve been,” she says.
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