Gee, Thanks Part I

 

Not Canadian Thanksgiving, eh?
NOTE:  Any guess what's in that red Solo cup?

    This is a repost.  But, hey, probably most of you haven’t read this, anyway.  Don’t worry, I’m going to have a look to see if any jokes need updating.  So I can replace the sucky ones with hilarious gut-busters.

    In fact, I’m so confident you’ll love this I’m splitting it into three parts.  That way, you won’t get easily bored reading a dreadfully long post and head over to You Tube to watch Rock Party Anthem (which is kinda catchy).

    NOTE:  I left that part in so you can figure out when I wrote this.  Rock Party Anthem came out in 2011.  Holy crap.

"Slothful laziness.  Strong in you, it is."

    Next year (providing any of you are still hanging around reading this crap), I’m really going to have to write something new.

Again...

  Until then, though, may I present Thanksgiving leftovers from last year...

   Oh, incidentally, expect a rerun for Christmas, too.  The good news there is that, based on the comments from last year’s post (HINT: None), it will be new. 

  So, God bless us, everyone!

"Wrong holiday."
"Jackass."

    

  Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

    It’s the first in a series of year-end celebrations, the others being Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Years.  Okay, calendar-nerds, New Years is technically the beginning of the year, but what we’re talking about-really-is New Year’s EVE.

    January 1st is just for Alka-Seltzer IV drips and watching college football until bloodshot eyes roll back into their sockets like hot coals in a snow bank (NOTE: Evocative poetic imagery which would make the nuns at Saint Stanislaus wet themselves with pride).

    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 on TBS, forcing Santa Claus to wear a gas mask at the mall is really tacky.  Likewise, you could say that Kwanzaa (Swahili for “A Couple of Days in January”) wraps it up, but it’s the Big Four which put the Seasons in Seasons Greetings.

    I mean, 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!"

"The X Box is mine!  Bitch. 
Oh, and Happy Holidays."

    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, families gather at Thanksgiving just for the sake of being together, not because they hope to score the latest electronic gizmo.

    And bitch about politics.

"Could you pass the green bean casserole?"
"I'm not passing anything to the Left!"
"Next year you'll all be in burkas!"
"The turkey had a right to life!"
"Fox News is programming our minds while we sleep!"
"Ilhan Omar eats babies!"
"Carrots!"
"Baby Carrots have a right to life!"
"JIMMY HAS A KNIFE!"

    NOTE:  This may happen a lot this year.

    Oh, sure, there are parades, football games, and enough food to sink the Mayflower, but Thanksgiving is thankfully (pardon the pun) devoid of the commercialism of Christmas and the bacchanalian excess of New Year’s Eve.  It’s similar to Hanukah, but, even during the Festival of Lights, there is some amount of commercialized gift-giving.

    Gratefully, we aren’t bombarded by wall-to-wall advertisements to get your loved ones the very latest in techno wizardry (“Because, if you REALLY loved Mom, you’d buy her that Nancy Lem!”) in the run-up to Thanksgiving.

You know what I'm talking about.

  Plus, there’s no such thing as a “24-Hour Thanksgiving Music Station” nor a “Randolph the Hair-Lipped Turkey” special on the Hallmark channel.

    No, Thanksgiving is a calming prelude to the mania which paralyzes us every December.  It’s a time to appreciate what we’ve been given in life.

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

 To be continued....

This is what’s known in the ‘biz’ (yeah, like I’m in any “biz”) as a ‘tease.’  It’s actually more of a way to get extra mileage out of a rerun so I don’t have to write anything original for a couple weeks.  Hmm, I wonder...is plagiarizing yourself allowed?

"Plagiarizing.  Big fan.  No joke."

Next:  Thanksgiving history lesson.  As far as you know.