Gee. Thanks. Part I

The following is the first of my year-end reposts.  In the coming weeks, most of what the two of you who read this blog will see are repeats of things you've already read.  Providing you read them in the first place.  Anyway, if this is new to you, I hope you enjoy.  If it's not new to you, at least you can read some of the captions with pictures.  They're new at least.

NOTE:  Granted my post on Veterans Day was also a repost, but considering as that is a somber occasion, I choose not to include it.  But, it is a repeat.  The day and the post.  

"Which will now be called 'Victory Day.'"

Personally, I was also okay with 'Gulf of America' and 'Department of Defense', too.

   Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

    It’s the first of the year-end celebrations, the others being Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Years.  And, by New Years, I mean New Years Eve.  January 1st is really only meant for watching college football while nursing a hangover.

And making resolutions not to act like a jackass next New Year's Eve. 
No promises on the Super Bowl party, though. 

    You could make the case that Veterans Day kicks it off.  But, as evidenced by the dismal ratings of the short-lived It’s the War to End All Wars, Charlie Brown special, the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month just doesn’t make for a merry start of the holiday season.

As entertaining as this was.

    So, it’s really the 4th Thursday of November which gets the festivities rolling (hey, it’s easier than trying to figure out when the frik Easter is).

   NOTE:   The first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.  Or whenever the calendar says.

"Unless you're Jewish.  Then, screw it."

    Incidentally, some folks have already jumped the gun and started decorating for Christmas.  We call them “crazy people.”

    I said what I said.

    After all, what evokes the holiday spirit more than getting trampled at Wal-Mart by frenzied harpies in bathrobes and curlers on Black Friday?

"Friday of Color."

    As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to appreciate how special Thanksgiving is.  A more sober occasion than the frenetic zaniness of the Yuletide season, at Thanksgiving we gather just to be together, not because we hope to score the latest electronic gizmo.

    Oh, sure, even though there are parades, football games, and enough food to sink the Mayflower, Thanksgiving is thankfully (pardon the pun) devoid of the commercialism of Christmas and the bacchanalian excess of New Year’s Eve.

    Except for the aforementioned crazy people.

    Gratefully, we aren’t bombarded by wall-to-wall advertisements to get our loved ones (or our families) the very latest in techno wizardry (“Because, if you REALLY loved Mom, you’d buy her a Kindle Fire!”) in the run-up to Thanksgiving.  Plus, there’s no such thing as a “24-Hour Thanksgiving Music Station” or a “Randolph the Hair-Lipped Turkey” special on the Hallmark channel.

But, there is the sucky-and racist-'Charlie Brown Thanksgiving'

"Wow.  Two mentions of Charlie Brown in one post.  That has to be a record."

    

    No, it's a calming prelude to the mania which paralyzes ever December.  It's a time to appreciate what we've been given.

    As the day draws nearer, I think back to that very first day of thanks held four hundred years ago...

To be continued in another repeat...