There is some seriously ignored irony that Thanksgiving is immediately followed by the biggest consumerist event of the year.
Although Christmas is a very nice holiday, it has morphed into a gift-giving and credit debt monster that is the bane of the holiday preceding it.
Thanksgiving, in my opinion, is the best holiday because it is the only American holiday insularly protected from consumerism. Almost every other major holiday has been warped by its consumerist aspect:
Easter is a religious holiday about necromancy co-opted, for some inexplicable reason, by chocolate-loving bunnies. Kids are set free to roam for painted eggs and gorge themselves on sweets.
Valentine’s Day is known as a ‘Hallmark holiday’ (its only reason for existence is to sell greeting cards). Black Friday is now a state holiday that wholly contradicts and has begun to envelop Thanksgiving’s wholesome festivities.
While Thanksgiving is by no means perfect, either as a traditional concept or a modern execution, at least it tries.
We gloss over the inaccuracy of the common Thanksgiving narrative of a gathering of the Pilgrims and Native Americans. Later in colonial history, their meetings would be much less holiday-worthy, with the Pilgrims and colonists massacring the Native Americans that gave them precious agricultural knowledge.
However, like most Americans, I’m all for historical revisionism, if the outcome is good. I can kind of ignore the deadly, xenophobic and ignorant roots of Thanksgiving if it means I can spend time with my family.
Christmas, on the other hand, is historical revisionism for the worse. A pure religious holiday is now stuffed harder with shopping and present-fetishization than an Epic Meal Time Thanksgiving consumer good turkey.
Let’s face it, Christmas sucks for anyone above the age of 12. Travel plans, decorating and obsessing over Black Friday deals is not something to celebrate. Not to mention the patent irony of getting in line for K-Mart or Best Buy to celebrate the birth of your anti-possessions prophet.
Thanksgiving celebrates families (sometimes unwillingly, but still) coming together, eating together and giving thanks for the good in their lives. On one day at least, we become pre-occupied with each-other instead of the objects we’re trading.
When I start hearing Christmas songs mid-way through November, I just sigh. We should be blaring A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving jazz out of every radio in November, not “Santa Baby.”