Resourcefulnacht is both a holiday and a small series of challenges for children

Giving thanks is a sign of weakness

A lot of people have asked me how the Schrutes enjoy the traditional holiday of “Thanksgiving.” The answer is simple. We do not. Celebrating a holiday that encourages blind appreciation for everything and anything in a person’s life diminishes the rare instances that a person is truly thankful for something, i.e. when that person is pulled from a well they may have fallen into. Giving thanks is also a sign of weakness. It shows that you are placing yourself in situations
in which you cannot depend on yourself and, thus, must rely on others to do things for you. At Schrute Farms, we choose instead to celebrate our own holiday called “Resourcefulnacht,” which is a Germlish hybrid word that roughly translates to “Night of Resourcefulness” in Enlgish
Resourcefulnacht is both a holiday and a small series of challenges for children. You can think of it as a dinner theatre with the theatre element being replaced by a string of events that include: knot-tying, beet loading and unloading, hand-to-hand combat using common household cleaning items, juggling, and a cooking challenge not unlike television’s “Top Chef” program*. In my teenage years, I was the knot-tying champion of Resourcefulnacht six years in a row. It remains one of my proudest achievements and also led to my inheritance of Schrute Farms.


Dinner on Resourcefulnacht is quite similar to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We eat turkey, as most Americans do, but unlike Thanksgiving celebrants, we actually earn our keep. Two weeks before Resourcefulnacht, the Schrute men are dispatched into the forest where they hunt for wild turkeys. Once the largest winged beast is found, it is then dispatched with a bow and arrow and returned to the farm for preparation. After the turkey is cleaned and ready to cook,
it is placed in a smoking pit two feet into the ground and buried there until Resourcefulnacht. This ensures that the turkey will be deliciously moist for all to enjoy. The children may only eat on Resourcefulnacht if they win one of the events, which adds an extra layer of pressure to the proceedings. Schrutes also enjoy a sweet potato casserole topped with marshmallows.
The Schrute children look forward to Resourcefulnacht all year as a way to prove themselves to the elder Schrutes. It is on this night that a Schrute child can go from anonymous teat-sucker to worthy contributor in the family. My second cousin, Ehrlich, proved himself to be so useful during Resourcefulnacht festivities that he was placed in charge of the family’s international beet distribution operations. Sadly, Resourcefulnacht does not test for mathematical skills and it
was soon discovered that Ehrlich had quickly run the entire international venture into the ground.

Whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or Resourcefulnacht, I commend you on controlling the turkey population in America. Should they be allowed to reproduce unchecked, this nation would be overrun by turkeys.

That is all.
Dwight K. Schrute


*NOTE: The Schrutes created this event long before “Top Chef” was ever invented. I’m not accusing them of stealing the idea, I just want all of my readers to know that the Schrutes are the progenitors of this style of culinary competition.

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