Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Eve, one of the biggest drinking holidays (at least in my neck of the woods). I love Thanksgiving Eve. No gift giving to worry about, the roads/weather is usually OK, seasonal beers are great, etc.
I’ll begin celebrating at 5 (happy hour is 5-7). My proud bourgeois friends will hold off and begin celebrating at 7. Either way it’s all good.
Who else is planning to celebrate?
Out of curiosity, when did Thanksgiving Eve become one of the biggest drinking holidays for you?
I ask because, years ago (94-96), I used to go home to NE Ohio for Thanksgiving, and my family would go out Thanksgiving Eve, and we would pretty much be the only people out drinking that night. Nowadays if I do home, we can’t find a place at most bars to sit it is so crowded, with T-shirts and everything!
Well, um, I plan on fucking off at work a lot.
It’s a travel day, not a drinking day.
Ahaa! I’ve been asking the same question. Years ago I wouldn’t think to hit the bars on Thanksgiving Eve. Then, something happened. The last few years TGiving Eve has been wild and crazy.
Last weekend and yesterday I got 20 to 25 texts asking where I was headed Wednesday night and what time I planned on arriving. It’s a big deal. In my area (western PA) I blame/credit the craft beer/brewery revolution.
Actually, my gf is traveling to her mother’s house to assist in preparations for Thursday’s dinner. I will be celebrating stag once again, although it sounds like I’ll be part of a huge group.
Yeah, same thing my family asks itself 
We are not too far from Pennsylvania.
Until we hear otherwise, we are going on the premise that WE started it, by a group of us going out on Thanksgiving Eve and just going friggin’ bananas for several years in a row 
Thanksgiving Eve = Get off work early, drink beer.
Thanksgiving = dinner with my wife’s extended family. Nice people, Southern Baptist, no booze.
Somehow I never thought of Thx as a big drinking holiday. 4th of July and New Year’s Eve are the big drinking holidays. I always prefer to stay home and have a quiet time on holidays or weekends like that. Too many crazies on the road. (And perhaps worse still, too many cops on the road.)
If I want to celebrate something, I can just as well pick some semi-random other time.
One might argue that I had my Thxgiving celebration, of sorts, last Sunday (Nov. 19). Couple of friends invited me to accompany them and another friend of theirs to Ukiah (a city about 2½ hour drive from where they live, an extra 1½ hour from where I live). Only we didn’t exactly drive up there. To make it a bit more interesting, that friend of theirs contributed the use of her Beechcraft Sierra so we flew up.
No crazies on the road. No cops. Nice views of Napa and Sonoma Valleys, all the way as far as Clear Lake. Nice enchiladas at the restaurant just across the street from Ukiah airport.
It’s possible we may do that again next weekend. The three of them have, apparently, been doing a lot of just-for-fun flying in that airplane, and I am apparently invited to accompany them from time to time.
I’ve seen a few news reports, both local and national, calling Thanksgiving Eve “DrinksGiving” - such as Tampa News. I can see it: long weekend, stress of family and company, want to “get out of the house” before you’re stuck. Unfortunately, I need to be driving from 5:00 PM to 8:30 PM that night, and I really don’t need to come across any drunk drivers. I’m worried enough about deer popping up unexpectedly.
Drinking heavily and driving a car…they go together like stuffing and giblet gravy!
Easter Eve we’ve been going out and encountering party folk. Then there are St Patrick’s Day and St Practice Day (celebrated either the day, week, or month before Patrick).
Oh, and you also forgot February 21.
My plan as well, and very much in progress.
I’ll be meeting a few friends for a drink or two, but early. I’m sure I’ll be done by 8:00 or 8:30PM. After that, it turns into what us old fogies refer to as “amateur night”. I’ll skip that. 
I kind of like “amateur night”. It’s sort of like watching minor league baseball. There are some decent prospects who may one day be in the big leagues.
Somehow that/this one missed me ------- and you’re talking to someone who has had their Santarchy plans in the works since punishing my liver at last years Santarchy.
But now that I know about it I still lose out. Da Jungle now has me in 6pm-11pm so …
According to AAA, it appears to have gotten to the point where so many people are worried about Wednesday traffic that they are traveling on Tuesday, making it the new “Thanksgiving traffic day.” Supposedly, Sunday is still the busiest travel day of the year.
I’ve never heard of Thanksgiving Eve as a party night. Until this thread.
Then again, I don’t hang out with a crowd that does drinking as a thing to do. Drinking may happen as part of doing something else, but it’s not *the *thing being done.
What about Saturday? Is that a “driving day”? Is it also a “drunk (or overhung) driving day”? Will the cops be out patrolling the highways en masse ?
Need answer [del]fast[/del] … well, by first thing Saturday anyway. I’ve got a 2-hour (each way) drive down I-5 in the San Joaquin Valley planned for Saturday morning and afternoon.
No, no, no, no…<SIGH>…Now, see, this is all wrong. Leave it up to the frikking “journalists” in the “lamestream media” to screw it up that badly.
The day before Thanksgiving is Hanksgiving, the day we all gather to give thanks for all things Tom Hanks.