Thursday, November 18, 2010

Being Thankful Just Ain't Sexy

Before the last witches hat is gone from the shelves in the department stores, Christmas Trees are erected in Shopping Malls and Department Stores across America.  Don't get me wrong, I love the orange, purple and black of Halloween and the glittery red, green, silver and gold of Christmas as much as the next person.  What about the holiday in-between, the un-sexy, homely middle sister of Halloween and Christmas?  What about poor little old forgotten Thanksgiving? 
OK, so Thanksgiving is not exactly a retail marketers dream, cornucopias, turkeys and veggie trays can only be so glamorous!  Be creative, it's your job as a marketing guru to make us spend money we don't have!  Good Lord, you got us to believe that if we don't go into debt for six months for Christmas then little Johnny will need therapy for the rest of his life due to his parents lack of love by not buying him that $600 computer.  You brainwashed us into thinking that STUFF is what Christmas is all about. Well sharpen your damn pencils and market STUFF (not just stuffing) for Thanksgiving.  We could be out buying new furniture so granny doesn't have to sit on patio furniture or the kids don't have to sit at a card table, what about expensive new china settings and serving dishes?  This is AMERICA man, land of the over-consuming consumer, wouldn't you rather see us indebted for the whole year instead of just a few months?
Thanksgiving has the bad rap of being the dysfunctional  family gathering (more on that on my Thanksgiving post) but nobody has a perfect family.  Have another drink, turn on the football game and get the hell over it!
You only see the real assholes of the family that one time of the year anyway.  You have a whole year to make fun of them after they leave...look at the bright side, blog-fodder for later.
I wanted to include some credible details about the origin of Thanksgiving for everyone (nobody reads this anyway so everyone is an exaggeration) but my main source was the internet. If it's on the internet it must be true except for that which is posted by complete wackos!  I think the most credible info is from the William Bradford Diaries  It seems as though America started out with a communistic approach but after discovering that people weren't inspired to work for the good of the team, their harvest was a little meager.  Once they worked their own land they had more bountiful harvests thus inspiring the first Thanksgiving.  It was allegedly in August (I also heard October, way to get it right Canada).  Maybe that's our problem we need to move it to August, we don't have any competing holidays then anyway...but the pumpkins aren't ripe yet.  Abe Lincoln said we should have it in November so November it is. 

I say let's put the Thanks back in Thanksgiving.  Have we forgotten about the many things in our lives that we have that we are not just entitled to but should be thankful for?  I hope not...I wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving and thanks to my daughter from anotha motha for giving me the inspiration to write about this topic. 

2 comments:

renae said...

I guess I'm the one body who was very informed by the early attempts at communism. I'm sad it failed. (I'm an idealistic pragmatist. I heard that description on NPR and am sticking with it.)

Mistress of My Domain said...

I likr that....kind of an oxymoron...perfect!