November 26, 2003
Gobble

Thanksgiving.  The favorite.  By general acclimation Thanksgiving seems to have emerged as number one in the contest for most popular holiday, at least among the post Santa set.

     What causes a holiday to at least make it into the “Top 5” days of national significance?  It would appear a minimum three-day weekend is critical to the popularity of holidays dotting our calendar.

     Easter, as a prime example, suffers by it’s perception as just a two day event since it always falls on Sunday eliminating the potential for a day off from work for government and bank employees plus Easter’s timing precludes the possibility of an extra day’s double time in the pay vouchers of the rank and file forced to work. Easter would receive a huge popularity boost in the holiday sweepstakes were Good Friday also a legal holiday making it much easier for the American public to not only attend church for the first time since Christmas Eve but also catch a long weekend in Las Vegas or Disneyland, travel time being the ultimate arbiter of a holiday’s significance in the collective mind of America. 

     Some once popular holidays have fallen upon hard times in terms of public appreciation. Columbus Day’s popularity seems to be somewhere between Kwanza and the Chinese New Year in terms of public appeal all across our country except in Denver where the American Indian Movement spends a great deal of time every October ensuring Columbus Day in the Mile High City has a much higher profile than it enjoys elsewhere.

     All of this is not to say Thanksgiving has no competition in its effort to be our nation’s most popular holiday.  Memorial Day, the 4^th of July and Labor Day offer Thanksgiving a challenge.  But these three summer celebrations are more associated with brats and beer than a family feast.  And it’s not likely relatives will fly or drive from all over the country just to sit around an uncle’s backyard on a warm summer day drinking beer, eating hot dogs and potato salad while swatting mosquitoes and worrying about West Nile virus.

    New Year’s Day and Martin Luther King’s birthday are welcome days off but too close to Christmas to gain a serious foothold in the holiday popularity challenge. Presidents Day is a nice winter break but doesn’t qualify as a feast day, regarded more as a day off from school when you can take the kids skiing. 

    There is no questioning Christmas as the dominant holiday on the calendar.  But with Christmas carols, Christmas cards, Christmas lights, Christmas TV specials, Christmas parties and Christmas merchandise seeming to arrive on retailers shelves just after Memorial Day one gets the feeling that as holiday’s go, Christmas tries too hard.  In fact, you could make a case that Christmas, as a holiday, is pushy.

     Aah but Thanksgiving.  The season’s first snow is already here, which is wonderful for we winter fans,  and tomorrow the best holiday of the year arrives at our youngest daughter’s home in Parker when four generations of our family will sit down to an absolute feast of turkey and dressing plus sweet and mashed potatoes.  Any holiday meal with dueling potatoes on the table has to rank as number one.   Then you add still warm fresh baked rolls topped with butter, fresh cranberries, string beans with zippy sauce (family secret sauce), Swedish rye bread, scalloped corn, your entire plate topped with turkey gravy and highlighting the feast in front of you is a palate pleasing pinot grigio. And when the main course is history, amidst the protests of “this it too much, I’m stuffed”, you are presented with a choice of pumpkin or apple pie, “you want that ala mode?” plus fresh coffee with real cream.

    Amidst the clatter of silverware, the arguments at the “kids” table (and is it really Thanksgiving without a kids table?), and yours truly asking “more mashies please?” we’ll all talk at once about the memories of Thanksgivings past.