Thanksgiving is the best holiday. It is 100 percent pagan. It is all about sticking your nose deep in the trough and over-consumption.

It is definitely my favorite. If they could just figure out a way to do it without all the relatives and arguing, it would be flawless, but you know, no matter how hard you try, no matter how much your mom warns everyone to be on their best behavior this year, a brouhaha is in the making.

The holidays can be stressful. Especially now when you are maybe just going home for the first time since starting school.

You’re getting away from your parents for the first time and when you go back, it’s like they’re lying in wait for you.

You go home to a hundred questions; it’s the Inquisition without the rack … if you’re lucky.

If you are an English major, it’s really bad because all of your relatives think they speak English, and it’s a waste of time to major in a language you already speak.

Relatives you never had a problem with can’t wait to tell you how smart you aren’t getting yet.

These people that raised you and maybe even helped you get to Iowa State are the enemy … remember that.

Just go in like a hostile witness and try not to set yourself up by talking about all you’ve learned this semester; even if they ask, they’re just setting you up.

If you thought the energy existed for a potential blowout before, just wait until Grandma gets all liquored-up on Manischewitz and gets going about how, in her day, no one went to college because they all had to go and fight the “jerries.”

All you can say is your sorry there aren’t any Germans that need killing and move on. But you will feel the need to defend yourself, and that will be your big mistake.

Don’t go gettin’ in no arguments with old people because you can never win.

Not because they are any smarter or have more knowledge or wisdom than you (they should, but would we be living in a messed up world if they really did?), but because they have decades more experience in pissing people off.

That and they don’t hear half of what you say and so pretend they are winning just like you’re eight all over again. Attitude is half the battle.

No, the best way to come out on top this holiday season is shock value. If you had anything pierced or tattooed, show it off. If you haven’t changed your hair color, today is the day. Get all hip-hop on their asses. Wear your hat backwards and call everyone G.

The biggest mistake most people make is trying to communicate. If you actually go for that “connected” feeling just because you were homesick all semester and now you feel good being home, don’t let them know that. It just adds fuel to the fire. They WANT you to feel that way, and it makes you weak.

If you want them to make overtures of loving grace to you, you have to be seen to run away as fast as possible. It’s all about reverse psychology. You have to get inside their heads and understand that what really motivates people in most situations is their need to be needed and their disdain of anyone who needs them. So act like you don’t need these people and read a book in the corner. Pick a Russian author. If your family is anything like mine, that will really nail them since most of them can’t appreciate that the cold war is over.

Don’t do drugs but try to look like you might be. But not any of these fancy new “designer drugs” that they don’t have a clue about. Most of your older relatives still think that “dope” is the devil’s weed because they saw “Reefer Madness” eons ago. “High School Confidential” was a big influence on middle-class attitudes about “goof balls,” so use a lot of hipster slang from about 20 years ago if you really want to make people suspicious. The purpose of modern drug slang is to make sure people don’t understand. If you mention crystal meth in front of your average grandmother, she would probably think you were talking about a delicious, low-calorie diet drink and ask for some too.

Wear blue shades like a hippie. My grandmother still goes on about hippies to this day even though she probably hasn’t seen one for thirty years if she ever saw one in person to begin with. My uncle could have rolled his own joints at the dinner table over coffee, and she wouldn’t have had a clue. But let a man with hair past his collar set foot on her property to this day, and she would swear it was a hippie.

So since the big Turkey Day Blowout is inevitable, you may as well come out on top. Don’t be a loser. Give as good as you get and show no mercy. But play it smart. Don’t be confrontational; be evasive.

Think of this year’s celebration as your time to be thankful for the opportunity to get some payback.

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Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs. He is opinion editor of the Daily.