I really like Thanksgiving. It’s less tense than Christmas can be, since I’m usually only buying a couple of things to eat (or stuff to make a couple of things to eat), it’s just showing up and hangin with The Fam. My only real issue with it is that each year I have to choose between my parents, my other parents, and my in-laws as part of the annual Divvy Up The Holidays plan that comes from having divorced parents as well as a set of in-laws.

So Thanksgiving is great! No gifts to worry about, no parties to coordinate, no cards to send, it’s just about the meal and the folks you eat it with. This is, for most of us I think, a pretty nice holiday. It’s sort of like the unofficial kickoff to The Holiday Season. Start out with a nice lower key holiday before the insanity of Christmas and all that it entails (for most).

So why is it getting the shaft? Last week the Walgreens at 39th & Belmont put “CHRISTMAS IS HERE!” on their sign, and Dieselboi informed us below that the tree is in the Square now…most stores have a larger Christmas area than I remember seeing in years past, and this year I actually clapped eyes on ornaments in AUGUST. Yes, honey, you read that correctly. AUGUST!!!

Since you probably don’t know (seeing as how you probably don’t know me personally), my birthday is tomorrow. My entire life I have always looked forward to my birthday, but never as much as I looked forward to Christmas. As best I can recall, the end of my year used to break down like this:

Halloween (no xmas evidence)
My Birthday (no xmas evidence)
Thanksgiving (no xmas evidence till the day after)
(Christmas evidence EVERYWHERE)
Christmas Eve/Day
New Year’s Eve/Day

And it seems like these last few have been more like:
Halloween (a little xmas evidence)
My Birthday (quite a bit MORE xmas evidence)
Thanksgiving (who cares? Christmas is coming, people! CHRISTMAS!)
CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!
New Year’s Eve/Day (still some Christmas)
January (After Christmas sales till about Valentine’s Day)

And I don’t think it’s fair to Thanksgiving to stomp all over it. Aside from Jones Soda there seems to be very little Thanksgiving Spirit anymore. It isn’t like there’s a lot of Thanksgiving stuff anyway, it’s mostly just turkey and family, and for some, football.

So that’s why I’m concerned about Thanksgiving. Every year “the Christmas season” gets a little longer and I fear that soon Thanksgiving will be lost in the shuffle, reduced to a quick TV Dinner and perhaps one (ONE!) football game.

I always liked that my birthday was far enough before Thanksgiving to not get lumped in with everything else and I like that my birthday is an event by itself, not combined with Christmas (like, for example, Mister Fishbones, born December 27th). Sometimes I got birthday cake at Thanksgiving if the whole custody thing didn’t work out any better, and even that was ok (mmm, turkey and stuffing and double chocolate fudge cake, woohoo!) sometimes. But when you start chipping away at each end of “the holiday season” and start encroaching on Halloween two months beforehand then someone has GOT to stop the insanity.

But who? Me? What can I do? Do I tell stores selling Christmas cards in August that I won’t shop there? Do I complain to managers about hearing Silver Bells muzak in October? Start a boycott? Start a website? Start a riot? What exactly are my options here? I’m not against Christmas itself, I’m against Christmas in August, September, and October. Parts of November are negotiable.

Who is responsible for stealing Thanksgiving? And what can we do to take it back before it turns into one big holiday?

Related posts:

1. Thoughts on Thanksgiving
2. Thanksgiving 2: The Decoration-ing
3. QOD - Holiday Lights
4. QOD - Thanksgiving is coming
5. A Very Early Happy Thanksgiving!