Local Family Celebrates Thanksgiving with Original Pilgrim Favorite: Disease

HOPKINS — For some Thanksgiving is a time to be with family and to share gratitude. For others it is a reminder of the genocide of indigenous peoples within the US. However one Minnesotan family has a Thanksgiving celebration that is the best of both worlds.

To pay tribute to the Pilgrims of the first Thanksgiving, each year the Jorgensens meet for the holiday and exchange whatever disease, flu, or virus is ravaging the country at that time.

“Grandpa Carl has COVID so the whole family is coming together on Turkey Day to make sure we give it to one another,” said an ecstatic Suzy Jorgensen. “Sharing diseases is a Jorgensen family tradition!”

“My grandfather gave everyone smallpox, my own father gave us the flu many times,” elder Carl Jorgensen III told us while connected to a ventilator. “I’ve given my children everything ranging from H1N1 to clinical depression for over a century now. You name it they’ve had it!”

While older Jorgensen’s are excited for it, 15-year-old Sara Jorgensen has different feelings about the tradition. “Last year Aunt Carol brought a hotdish that literally gave everyone the Measles. If I don’t get emancipated I’ll die, or worse: they’ll make me marry the pastor’s son Garth. He’s never been vaccinated!”

“What’s great about the pandemic is seeing so many other families spreading holiday cheer the Jorgensen family way,” said Grandpa Jorgensen as he repeatedly coughed on his “famous” four-day-old deviled eggs.