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Giving
Thanks For Thanksgiving
by Mad Dog |
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It doesn’t take much
to create a holiday anymore. Take Cinco de Mayo. A small Mexican commemoration of the 1862 defeat of
French troops at the Battle of Puebla, it
only took a little creativity on the part of the Mexican beer
companies to turn it into a full-blown American fiesta. |
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Like it or not, the
Holiday Season is in full swing. The Holiday Season, for those of you
who have been too busy pondering the irony of Paris Hilton taking up the
cause of drunken elephants in India to pay attention, is defined as the
group of year-end celebrations that includes Halloween, Thanksgiving,
Christmas, and Hanukkah that officially starts right after July 4th when
the drug stores pull the barbecue grills, lawn chairs, and mosquito
repellent off the shelves and put out the Christmas tree ornaments,
candy canes, and CDs of Slim Whitman’s Kwanzaa Favorites Volume 17.
Hey, you can’t say they don’t give you plenty of shopping days until
Christmas.
The Holiday Season is big business.
Consider that this year we spent an estimated $5 billion on Halloween
products. To put this in perspective, that’s almost twice what Adam
Sandler will get paid to act like a whiney adult brat in his next movie
but less than half what Heather Mills will take home from her divorce
settlement with Paul. Two billion of those dollars went to buying candy,
which means an awful lot was left to pay for costumes, decorations,
pumpkins, beer, Pepto Bismol, and ant exterminating after the little
critters discovered where you hid the candy. Next year maybe you’ll
wise up and eat all the Take 5’s immediately.
This consumer binge has made
Halloween number two in holiday spending, ahead of Easter but behind
Christmas. Obviously the egg and rabbit industries just aren’t putting
enough effort into their marketing, so don’t be surprised if when
March rolls around you see magazine ads with the Easter Bunny wearing a
yolk moustache asking, “Got eggs?”.
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Maybe Hallmark and American Greetings are being selfless and trying to
maintain a modicum of decorum. Okay, let’s get serious. The truth is
they haven’t been able to come up with any funny ideas that don’t
play on the phrases “Don’t be a turkey” and “Get stuffed.” |
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It doesn’t take much to create a holiday anymore. Take Cinco de Mayo. A small Mexican commemoration of the 1862 defeat of
French troops at the Battle of Puebla, it only took a little creativity on the part of
the Mexican beer companies to turn it into a full-blown American fiesta.
Cities all over the country throw block parties and street festivals
celebrating Cinco
de Mayo, mostly in towns where the nearest Mexican is a Chihuahua on the
poster at Taco Bell and the people who walk around with a lime stuck in
their Budweiser listening to American rock bands wouldn’t know a burro
from a burrito if they ate one of each. Don’t be surprised if Congress
moves this celebration to the first Friday in May so we can have yet
another three-day weekend. And celebrate Cinco
de Mayo on, say, Siete
de Mayo.
Luckily there are still a few pure
holidays left. Columbus Day is pretty clean, even though in some places,
like San Francisco, it’s not even called Columbus Day anymore, but
Italian Heritage Day. You know it’s pure because no one spends money
on Columbus Day. Okay, maybe a cannoli here and a sausage sandwich
there, but that only comes to a total of $2,598.45 nationwide. Plus tax.
Then there’s Thanksgiving.
Incredibly, Thanksgiving has remained pretty uncommercialized. Sure
there are those goofy turkey decorations with the honeycomb crepe paper
bodies and the sappy TV specials that reap almost as much ad revenue as
the Super Bowl because advertisers want you to think they’re kicking
off their Christmas advertising campaign at Thanksgiving when you know
for a fact they were airing the same commercials during Labor Day
weekend. But you don’t even see a holiday basic —greeting cards.
Maybe Hallmark and American Greetings are being selfless and trying to
maintain a modicum of decorum. Okay, let’s get serious. The truth is
they haven’t been able to come up with any funny ideas that don’t
play on the phrases “Don’t be a turkey” and “Get stuffed.”
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And we give thanks that there’s a presidential election coming up next
year even if it does mean 347 more days of trying to ignore the
campaign. |
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Thanksgiving is relatively intact, still being celebrated by
eating until a plunger won’t get more food down, snoring in front of
the TV while telling yourself that breathing is aerobic exercise, doing
our best to pretend we like everyone in the family for at least the
first half hour, and trying not to think about what mincemeat is while
we shovel it down because, well, it’s Thanksgiving and you’re
required by law to eat everything that’s set out on the table,
including the pine cone turkey centerpiece.
Oh yeah, we also take time to give
thanks. Thanks that we’re people and not turkeys. Thanks that we
remembered to wear a large shirt so we could pull the shirt tail out to
hide the fact that we unbuttoned our pants after that turkey sandwich we
ate an hour after dinner. Thanks that there’s a presidential election
coming up next year even if it does mean 347 more days of trying to
ignore the campaign. Thanks that there are only seven days in the week
so they can’t possibly fill more nights with CSI and Law and
Order. And thanks that we’re smart enough not to wake up at 6:00
am the day after Thanksgiving to hit the malls with everyone else. Just
don’t tell anyone that it’s because you’ll be busy planning next
year’s Cinco de Mayo party.
©2007 Mad Dog
Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
These columns appear in better newspapers across the country. Be
thankful if there's one near you.
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