Not even a week after Halloween, and I am already seeing the new and improved Christmas commercials for 2015. Each year it seems the time to begin celebrating Christmas begins sooner and sooner. This year it appears Halloween was the nominated “flood gate” holding back the Christmas cheer. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas as much as the next guy, but we all are forgetting that we are glossing over one of the greatest holidays of the year. Thanksgiving! Or as my family likes to call it, “ThanksGivens.” A day to gather with family and friends, throw the football around, eat some awesome food, and take some awesome pictures for the gram (#basic).
Having a dad from Texas we often celebrate Thanksgiving with a bit of a Southern twist to it. If our Thanksgiving was a person it would be Cousin Eddie from "Christmas Vacation"; allow me to show you why…
Normal Thanksgiving Morning: Wake up and prepare the turkey to bake in the oven for a lovely Thanksgiving dinner.
ThanksGivens Morning: Fire up the pot of peanut oil and rub down that turkey with whatever concoction we came up with this year. It’s frying time baby! After 21 years of frying turkeys rumor has spread throughout my town about the superior cooking method of turkeys. So much so my friends and neighbors come by to have my dad and me fry their turkeys. This is no joke; we have to make an actual schedule. We do not accept payment, but we won’t turn down a six pack and some good conversation.
(my Dad and a local friend coming to pay homage to a Thanksgiving Landmark)
Preparing your house for a normal Thanksgiving: Start a fire, and open up that oven. Get the scents of the holidays filling the rooms of your house. Throw on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and kick back.
ThanksGivens: It’s time to fire up the burn barrel! For those who don’t know, a burn barrel is typically a large oil drum that sits outside, and you fill it up with whatever wood you can find and light it up! Nothing says ‘Merica like a large fire coming out of a rusted out barrel on Thanksgiving.
Typical Thanksgiving Dinner: Gather around the dining room table that you use maybe once or twice a year, sit down with your nicely set table, and chow down.
ThanksGivens dinner: Grab your paper plates and hurry to the food line! But not too fast; we have to throw in a prayer somewhere. A nice ad-libbed prayer sounds off the dinner like the shot of a gun at the beginning of a race. Our dining room table sits their set, but it’s clear at this point that it is only for decoration as people congregate elsewhere. People surrounding the burn barrel using their plates as tables, a group joining around the TV to catch some Thanksgiving football and then the Italian side of the family gathers in the kitchen having a screaming match about anything and everything (We have some shouters in the family; it’s hard to get a word in). Afterwards we chow down on some dessert and then bring out the dessert “spirits.” My grandma justifies it by saying, “It’s good for digestion.” I’m on to you, Grandma.
Typical Thanksgiving evening: Family finishes up their large meals and says their goodbyes. The host house cleans up from a day of festivities, and everyone heads to bed hopefully feeling good about another successful holiday now behind them.
ThanksGivens evening: To cap it all off we take out our arsenal of fireworks, which were smuggled in from Pennsylvania, and put on a full-fledged firework show which normally ends up with a police visit and a ticket or two. To wrap up the evening, the older folks head home and everyone stays up until just about every bottle is empty. We clean up as best we can and then head to bed. I get to rest easy with a stomach full of turkey and whiskey, and a day of good company. The next morning I wake up and start blasting Christmas music, giving the next 30 days as much Christmas cheer as I can possibly give.
So listen, no matter what you do for Thanksgiving, get excited for it! And if you don’t do anything at all then swing by the Givens household; our door's always open. Thanksgiving at the Givens’ household is pretty unique; what makes yours unique? Whatever that is, start celebrating it now and hold back that Christmas cheer for just a few more weeks! Start settling into November, and whatever you do Do not let it pass you by! It’s the best time of the year, the holiday season, and to overlook one of the holiday greats would be a shame! After all, people, it’s a holiday where we get to stuff our faces with as much food as we possibly can, what’s not to like about that?
