Thanksgiving: Irony of the underappreciated holiday 
by Dan Rzewnicki, Editor in Chief
November 23, 2011
What are you thankful for this year? Surprisingly, since I have become the resident complainer, only one part of the Thanksgiving season grinds my gears. However, rather than focusing on just the darkest parts of Thanksgiving, I will cast a dim light on all of the time between Halloween and Christmas. Therefore, Nov. 1 through Dec. 23 really grind my gears.
A law should pass banning Christmas music and movies until after Thanksgiving. Enough said.
Why do the Lions play every Thanksgiving? Before this season, the Lions were a few clowns short of a circus. The Blue Devil football team celebrated better chances of winning the NFL Super Bowl than the Lions had hope of earning a first down. Let's give everyone else a shot at playing on Thanksgiving, preferably teams that use successful plays.
Next, Thanksgiving is the most overlooked holiday. How can Americans ignore one of the few holidays not created by Hallmark? If you sit there reading this saying “I don’t ignore Thanksgiving. I give thanks every year,” allow me to provide a few examples of our ignorance.
- Ever watch a Thanksgiving movie that Charlie Brown didn’t star in?
- Christmas songs drive us to the brink of insanity with their repetition every year, yet no one, to my knowledge, has composed a Thanksgiving song.
- Black Friday shoppers kiss Thanksgiving goodbye on their way to the store before Thanksgiving has even ended. (Continue reading for a more in-depth look of Black Friday)
- People bedazzle their houses with lights and sounds before setting the Thanksgiving table, and none of the lights resemble turkeys, feathers or pilgrims.
- I’ve attended Halloween, Christmas, New Years, Fourth of July and St. Patrick’s Day parties, but never a Thanksgiving one.
The Thanksgiving menu baffles me. Why fill our plates with the same food every year? Who wrote a law that states “All Americans must eat turkey, stuffing, cranberries – only the canned kind that no one wants to eat – and pumpkin pie every Thanksgiving, no exceptions”? They say variety is the spice of life, so why commute to Pounds Turkey farm every year? Let’s mix it up with some fish, chicken or maybe even surf and turf. People might stop overlooking Thanksgiving if it added a sense of unpredictability.
Black Friday, to some, is the most glorious part of the Thanksgiving season. Crazy soccer moms and compliant fathers alike storm the stores of America, searching for the cheapest items and best sales. I often feel as if these people make the commitment to shop on Black Friday simply for the thrill of the possibility of stampeding a Wal-Mart greeter.
As if Black Friday isn’t enough, conspirators from credit card companies and online stores created Cyber Monday. It’s an entire day devoted to online sales providing a final chance for shoppers to nail the tricycle for Johnny and drain the last scraps of savings accounts or spend all available credit from their MasterCards and Visas. Devoted shoppers hunker down at their computers late Sunday night with enough food and water to last the day and click until their eyes cross or the credit card maxes out, whichever occurs second.
I often shed a tear for Thanksgiving, the one holiday left out in the road. Why, though, do we continue to bypass Thanksgiving? The lack of presents, the monotony or the weather may disappoint us, but those poor excuses do not justify throwing Thanksgiving out in the cold. The lack of appreciation for and all of the bad things about Thanksgiving really grind my gears.
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