Thanksgiving is my favorite time of year. Grandpa always flies in from California, tens of cousins cram into the kitchen for games of Monopoly and dominoes, and a Thanksgiving smorgasbord of turkey, pies, greens, mashed potatoes, buns, mac n cheese, and other delectables is prepared and consumed. Being warm and toasty inside with the family is truly a special feeling. It pains my achy heart to see such a lovely holiday slip slowly towards irrelevance.

Within three days of the commencement of Halloween, Hy-Vee and Hy-Vee gas had their holiday lights up. Gamestop and Ames’ business district had decorations ready equally soon or sooner, and the radio switched to crowd pleasers such as “Silent Night” and “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” within the same timeframe. I saw no corporate Thanksgiving decorations and of course wasn’t expecting any, but I wish there was at least a respected downtime between Halloween and Christmas rather than the current system of pretending that Thanksgiving isn’t there.

I mean, what does it say about a culture when the family focus of Thanksgiving is skipped for the commercial gratification of Christmas? When a holiday literally dedicated to giving thanks is ignored in favor of a holiday that, despite its good tidings, has become a holiday of receiving and little else?
It’s a harsh indictment of American culture to know that Thanksgiving is being slept on. It’s good to give thanks for things. It’s good to be with family, any kind of family, whether or not they’re actually related to you. It’s good to enjoy what we have. We have so much! The things we take for granted are the same things that other people in this town, this country, this world, kill each other for. And if we as a nation cannot take the time to see how much we have, to see the sheer amount of things that are in our possession, then what do we really have?