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thanksgiving

Joy

His aunt died on Thanksgiving and his 'rap' about how the family handled it is hilarious

The 95-year-old's 'bold, creative decision' to die on Thanksgiving when the whole family was at her house led to this chaotic masterpiece.

A viral video tells a wild, oddly hilarious tale of a guy's aunt dying on Thanksgiving.

A loved one dying on a holiday isn't normally something to laugh about, but there are exceptions to every rule. This video is one of them.

TikTok user Darien (@dairy.n) shared a story about his family's Thanksgiving Day that is so gloriously bizarre and delightfully real, it's hard not to laugh, despite the fact that it's about his aunt dying. The fact that he tells the tale in the style of a "One thing about me" rap is extra hilarious, and judging by the comments of some of the 6.7 million people who've watched it, it's struck people's funny bones.

Dark humor? A little bit. But his aunt was 95 and she died of natural causes, which helps the hilarity feel not quite so inappropriate. She also apparently had a fabulous sense of humor that she used to cope with her own difficulties throughout her life, so the video is more like a fitting tribute than a what-the-heck storytelling.

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A Kohl's in Rocky Hill, Connecticut.

Black Friday was traditionally celebrated on the day after Thanksgiving. But about a decade ago, competition forced major retailers to get a jump on the big day by having blockbuster sales a day earlier on Thanksgiving.

Once the Black Friday cut-off was breached, people feared the holiday season would start earlier and earlier. However, there’s been a change over the past few years with some big-box stores announcing they’ll be closed on Thanksgiving, allowing their employees to spend time with their families.

The most recent announcement was by Kohl’s, a Wisconsin-based company with just under 100,000 employees and more than 1,100 stores in 49 states.

“Last year, Kohl’s served millions of customers both in store and online throughout Black Friday week, and we look forward to delivering that same incredible experience to our customers again this year,” the company said in a statement. “Customers looking to shop Kohl's on Thanksgiving Day will be able to shop on Kohls.com and in the Kohl’s App.”

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via Pixabay

Happy pumpkin season.

We celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November in the United States. The big focus on that day is the massive feast, football and maybe a little talk about pilgrims and Native Americans breaking bread together.

But, aside from a possible prayer at dinner, are many people focusing on the most essential part of the holiday: being thankful?

Amy Latta, a mother and craft expert, noticed the disconnect between the holiday and its meaning in 2012 so she created a new family tradition, the Thankful Pumpkin. The idea came to her after she went to a pumpkin patch with her son, Noah, who was 3 at the time.

“We need to stop and focus and be intentional about counting our blessings. To help do that in our family, we started the tradition of the Thankful Pumpkin,” she wrote on her blog. “All you need to make one is a pumpkin and a permanent marker and a heart full of gratitude.”

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Wanda Dench and Jamal Hinton met when she accidentally invited him to Thanksgiving dinner in 2016.

In 2016, Wanda Dench texted her 24-year-old grandson to tell him that Thanksgiving dinner would be at her house at 3:00 p.m. She received a text back that said, "Who is this?"

Dench responded, "Your grandma," but the recipient of the text was not, in fact, Dench's grandson. It was a 17-year-old high schooler named Jamal Hinton. After the two exchanged selfies and established that Dench had the wrong number, Hinton joked, "Can I still get a plate tho?"

"Of course you can," Dench wrote back. "That's what grandmas do…feed everyone."

Amazingly, Hinton took her up on the offer, and so began the wholesome Thanksgiving story the internet can't get enough of.

Every year since, Dench and Hinton have gathered to enjoy Thanksgiving together. Hinton has documented their holiday gatherings on social media, and this year's Twitter announcement that the tradition is continuing for a sixth year garnered a million likes in one day. The post includes a screenshot of Dench's text to Hinton—from "Grandma Wanda"—that reads: "It would bring me great joy if you, Mikaela and your family would come to my house on Thanksgiving day to share good food and great conversation. Your friend always, Wanda." It also included a photo of Wanda and her husband Lonnie with Jamal and his girlfriend Mikaela from two Thanksgivings ago.

Sadly, this year's dinner, like last year's, will be missing one. Lonnie passed away from COVID-19 in April 2020, so last year's Thanksgiving photo included his picture in a frame.

There's something so simple and pure about the way these strangers met by accident and created a lovely tradition out of it.

Dench shared with ABC News that she grew up in a military family. "We moved around a lot so I was always going to new places. And so strangers were not strangers to me," she said. "Family is more than blood. It's the people you want to be with."

Hinton told the New York Post in 2019 that the two text one another regularly and get together every couple of months, and they both love seeing people's joy when they hear about their unexpected friendship.

"We are both really passionate and love talking about our story and how many people have reached out to us and told us how it affects them," he said. "We are both very happy and grateful that we could be the centerpiece to such an amazing story and bring joy and faith in so many different people."

Hinton said people frequently tell him that the story restores their faith in humanity.

"It makes me feel good knowing something I was a part of affected so many people in a good way," he said.

With so much grief and division and general ickiness in the world, it's refreshing to see two human beings connect like this. And it's even more heartening to see that they've nurtured their friendship over the years, through life changes and loss. This is what life should be like—thank you, Wanda and Jamal, for the beautiful annual reminder of what we can be.