We noticed something shocking this fall.
No sooner had Halloween ended and all of the candy eaten the world seemed to have leap-frogged over Thanksgiving.
Store shelves, bursting with costumes and candy a few days earlier, were shockingly bare on Oct. 31. Store workers, not elves, were busy restocking with Christmas ornaments and gifts.
Not even Thanksgiving and we were jumping right into Christmas?
Sure enough, less than a week after Halloween came and went, Christmas reigned almost everywhere. Starbucks already had displays of holiday coffees, cups and other trinkets. Christmas lights went up around houses in the neighborhood.
The Black Friday sales were announced starting on virtually every day of the week in early November. Even “Friday,” has been slighted.
We began to feel regret for the disrespect we’re showing toward those old Pilgrims and the traditions they started, even though we now know they were feasting on berries, vegetables and dried fish – not plump birds and grandma’s special stuffing. “Please pass the herring, Capt. Alden.”
We remain aghast, but it’s not too late. We can save Thanksgiving and do it this week. We need a movement to reclaim this timeless American holiday.
We can start with a book by Sam Sifton, food writer for The New York Times. It’s titled Thanksgiving: How to Cook It Well.
It’s informative and fun and offers six rules to live by on Turkey Day. Its best point is reminding us that Thanksgiving is a time to stop, reflect, give thanks and, of course, eat. Eat a lot.
Sifton’s six rules:
1.) Turkey. That’s it.
2.) No appetizers or salads. He writes: “At Thanksgiving, appetizers take up valuable stomach space. They are insulting to your own hard work. And salad? No. See above. A salad is a perfect accompaniment to many meals, a hint of astringency that can improve some dinners hugely. Not this one. You can have your salad tomorrow.”
3.) Television is OK. Sifton’s a New Yorker but in his video, he says it’s fine to let the guests watch the Dallas Cowboys.
4.) Make Pie. Lots of pies – apple, pecan, pumpkin. Get out the whipped cream.
5.) Clean up the mess before going to bed.
6.) Give thanks.
In this tumultuous year of a former president on trial and repeatedly charged with this and that and this and who can keep up with it all, and wars in the Mideast and still ongoing in Ukraine, Republican presidential candidates with virtually no chance of winning the nomination insulting and savaging one another, racism, antisemitism rampant, Thanksgiving gives a chance to pause, to celebrate family.
Our advice is to leave politics and wars and bad news at the doorstep.
But if you must allow free speech and political debate, this rule is inviolable: no alcohol!
Join the movement. Be part of the protest. Bring back Thanksgiving this week. It’s been hijacked by Christmas, but we can bring it back if only for a wonderful day and we have the will.
Oh. And don’t forget to give thanks.