What HAPPENED to Thanksgiving?

[Justin_Bailey]

@even_sven

I think what you are seeing is nostalgia. We are used to thinking of holiday’s from a kid’s point of view. For a kid, Halloween is all about kids getting candy, Thanksgiving is lessons on pilgrims and a big dinner, and Christmas is Santa Claus and presents. From a kid’s perspective, you don’t see the Halloween partying or the Christmas shopping craziness or the fact that turkey isn’t actually all that good and half the family is feuding with each other. The reality of what adults do on holidays is no comparison to the magic of them in childhood.

This is crazy talk. I was last a “kid” like 15 years ago. In all that time, Thanksgiving held pretty strong. It’s only been in the last two or three years that it has really been pushed aside. Honestly, I think that when a few stores opened on Thanksgiving Day a few years ago, it put the idea in people’s heads. Now they all open on Thanksgiving Day and a lot of people are ignoring the holiday like never before.

[BigT]

CNN demoted it to “not a real holiday.”

[Mr_Quatro]

@even_sven

I think what you are seeing is nostalgia. We are used to thinking of holiday’s from a kid’s point of view. For a kid, Halloween is all about kids getting candy, Thanksgiving is lessons on pilgrims and a big dinner, and Christmas is Santa Claus and presents. From a kid’s perspective, you don’t see the Halloween partying or the Christmas shopping craziness or the fact that turkey isn’t actually all that good and half the family is feuding with each other. The reality of what adults do on holidays is no comparison to the magic of them in childhood.

That’s some great insight on thanksgiving from a child’s point of view.

You should’ve seen the kid in the airport on ABC news tonight wearing his thanksgiving turkey hat he made at school … priceless

[Yookeroo]

@DKW

In years past, there was no mistaking the run-up to Thanksgiving. There were decorations set up. Television specials. Supermarket deals. Touching newspaper stories. Costumes and skits. Even the occasional tirade about celebrating the genocide of the indigenous tribes (the 90’s were like that). Every comic strip I’ve ever read did some kind of Thanksgiving entry, even Dykes to Watch Out For. And of course, the greeting card industry always got into the act.

I have to say that if Thanksgiving hasn’t been taken over by TV specials & other consumerist trappings*, this is a good thing. If that makes it some sort of lesser holiday, so be it.

*I love Christmas and don’t really have a problem with its consumerism, but it’s nice that there’s one holiday, one where the point is an appreciation for the good things in your life, isn’t all that co-opted by business