If you ask any department store, the Holiday season started the second the clock struck midnight on Halloween. If you ask me, the Holiday season started today. Black Friday is beyond hectic and is a decent representation of the frenzy surrounding the Holidays. The chaos is the reason we need Thanksgiving.
Once Halloween is over, the Holidays are marketed like crazy. Everything is decked in red, green and snow; the cups at Starbucks change and Dunkin Donuts pulls out the holiday donuts, in short, the season's marketing takes over our shopping experience. If you think about everything that needs to be done before Christmas Day (this is me personally, I am aware not everyone celebrates this holiday), your head may explode!
This is where Thanksgiving comes in handy. When the prospect of wrapping presents or cooking for upwards of five people can seem overwhelming, there is a holiday, ready made for a test run. Thanksgiving is sort of like a baby Christmas, strange thought, but stay with me. Christmas is a day spent with family with home cooked meals, decorations, and presents. Thanksgiving is a day spent with family with a huge home cooked meal, sort of decorated (my mom uses real cloth tablecloths, napkins, and nice silverware), and a football game. This is a rudimentary breakdown of the holiday dynamic for the sake of comparison. To clarify, under normal circumstances, I talk about the holidays with more fluff and joy, but I'm trying to be analytical for the sake of a farce.
If one examines the criteria for Christmas and Thanksgiving, One would observe the extra nuance associated with Christmas and assume people would be more excited for Thanksgiving, not anxious to forget about it. Thanksgiving is a chance to do a dry run of dishes you may serve at Christmas if they're not a hit, don't use them, it's like the previews of a Broadway show, things can be edited out and new players can be introduced when the show is moved.
On an entirely different note, I bet you enjoyed dessert yesterday. With Halloween and Christmas so distant, there is a stretch of nearly two months without an excuse to have formal dessert. Thanksgiving introduces a holiday where everyone can enjoy that extra special dish made for dessert. Honestly, Thanksgiving is a wonderful excuse to indulge in great food, and as a college student I will never turn that offer down. Short article short, I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving and hope next year there will be more turkey decorations in malls across the country.
