Thanksgiving gets the shaft

It is November 2nd, and the only remnants of Halloween are the signs for half-off a variety of pumpkin and/or fang shaped candy. Of course, Halloween was basically over on October 30th because that's when Trick or Treat was. What's that? Halloween was actually Sunday? Tell it to someone who doesn't live in the Bible Belt, and move along. Naturally, this meant that when I went to the store on Sunday, the Christmas decorations were up.

This is because Thanksgiving gets the shaft. IF stores are carrying any Thanksgiving products at all, it's normally two dish towels and a slightly smushed papier mache turkey. The spell check would like you to know that's not how you spell smushed. I would like you to know that the spell check is wrong. If you have the guts to venture all the way back the craft section of your local Super Wal-Mart (smaaaaall tooooown liiiiiiiife) you might be blessed by the discovery of one type of ribbon printed with Thanksgiving is sparkly script shoved in amongst all the generic fall stuff. But wait! I see a cornucopia! That kind of counts! You just have to dig through the vast mounds of  Christmas related tomfoolery to find it! Because Thanksgiving gets the shaft.

Some people, optimists, one might call them, like to say that this means that Thanksgiving is the last non-commercial holiday and we should embrace that time with our families as a day when the pressure to buy and give and spend! is off. Those people are not paying attention. Because Thanksgiving HAS been commercialized. In fact, Thanksgiving IS a commercial. It is one big advertisement for the day after Thanksgiving, also known as "You haven't finished your Christmas shopping? Better panic! Day" when every store in the area will put things on ridiculous mark down in the hopes of convincing you to do your shopping at 5 AM and risk being run over by someone who wants that Crock Pot just a little bit more than you do. The  last time I went shopping on Black Friday my sister and I went to Toys R Us and I stood in line while she shopped. It was an excellent strategy that allowed me to entertain myself by watching a woman climb the shelves to get to a Cabbage Patch Kid (note: I cannot believe they still sell those. My nieces still have mine from when I was a kid. They have not gotten less hideous. I mean, I loved mine, but...What was with their faces?). While she was up there, people started yelling for her to throw them down dolls. Which resulted in her hanging from the shelf yelling "who wants a black baby boy?" Kind of hilarious, but not exactly in the spirit of familial bonding, as my mom was home in bed, my sister was trying to fight her way back from the art section and security was on the loud speaker saying "we can see you ma'am, please get down" because the store was so crowded they couldn't get to her.

So no, Thanksgiving is not the last uncommercialized holiday. Those of you who still aren't buying my argument should try watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which is  a treasured moment in my family and if they'd stop showing ads for Christmas shopping, you might get to see some of the balloons and floats. After the parade is over, you can argue over whether to watch football or the dog show. I argue for the dog show, because there will be plenty of time to nap AFTER the enormous meal is over. And really, football hasn't eve started at that point, it's just two hours of pregame in which you feel vaguely sorry for the Detroit Lions and wonder who the genius was who decided that they would have to play every single Thanksgiving and pregame actually the only thing more boring than actual game except maybe the postgame in which they talk about all the things that just happened that no one was actually watching because the sheer amounts of turkey, dressing and gravy has caused us to fall asleep.

Because Thanksgiving? Gets the shaft.