We are now at that perfect moment sandwiched between a symbolic, inclusive holiday asking us to be thankful for the many things most of us take for granted, and the relentless commercialization of the looming Christmas holiday.
So far, no one has really figured how to sell a significant amount of merchandise for Thanksgiving. Somehow, the dour, genocidal Pilgrims and their story does not lend itself to a Madison Avenue treatment. Even the traditional Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade barely mentions the holiday it commemorates and instead makes the celebration a kickoff of its Christmas sales.
Meanwhile, we have taken a pagan holiday, the yuletide celebration of increasing daylight and turned it into a gigantic celebration of the birth of a child which must needs be celebrated by buying and distributing gifts to all and sundry.
I will probably be decried as a grinch by many friends and relatives, but I don't believe in a war on Christmas. Rather we should strive for a little more thanksgiving in the upcoming holiday.
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