Tag: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2011

While one ALWAYS ought to give thanks, one just doesn’t.

I think Thanksgiving is my happiest and saddest holiday. I have spent it, dumped at the last minute, home eating Chinese food and watching football, alone. I have spent it with 20+ people, only two of whom I knew before that day. I’ve gathered with a handful of other “orphans”. I’ve hosted family meals. But I haven’t celebrated it with my birth family since 1972.

I have no Thanksgiving tradition. There’s nothing I ALWAYS do. The year of the Chinese dinner, I didn’t even eat turkey.

Still, I like it. I like it because it’s not tied to any specific theology, only a general sense of appreciation. Giving thanks. And while one ALWAYS ought to give thanks, one just doesn’t. The reminder doesn’t hurt.

The Census Bureau has its Facts for Features for Thanksgiving, which, as a data geek, I enjoy.

Whatever you are doing, thank you for having come by this little corner of the blogosphere.

Thanksgiving


Thanksgiving: thanks to the Census Bureau.

The “event became a national holiday in 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November as a national day of thanksgiving. Later, President Franklin Roosevelt clarified that Thanksgiving should always be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of the month to encourage earlier holiday shopping, never on the occasional fifth Thursday.”

We are thankful that FDR provided that extra shopping period. Otherwise, Thanksgiving would have been a week later in 2000, 2006 and 2007, and would be a week later in 2012, 2017, 2018, 2023, 2028, 2029…

Seriously, I am thankful for all sorts of good things, not the least of which is music:

Sam & Dave – I THANK YOU.
Led Zeppelin – THANK YOU.
Sly and the Family Stone – THANK YOU FALETTINME BE MICE ELF AGIN.

My daughter’s current favorite joke:
Why did the turkey cross the road?
Because it was the chicken’s day off!

Thanksgiving DVDs

This article from the Washington Post inspired this post, but please don’t feel limited to their list.

What’s your favorite Thanksgiving film?
The Daytrippers
Pieces of April
Miracle on 34th Street
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
The Ice Storm
Home for the Holidays
Funny People

What, no Alice’s Restaurant?

For me, it’s a no-brainer; it’s Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. It’s my favorite John Candy film, and though I suppose this is sacrilege, it’s my favorite John Hughes movie as well.

What’s YOUR favorite Thanksgiving movie? I hope, for your sake, it’s not the very depressing The Ice Storm.

Watch Turkeys Away from WKRP in Cincinnati.
ROG

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