The Popcorn Stand: Thanksgiving still a holiday

We’re right in the middle of the Hallowthanksmas season so it’s time to acknowledge Thanksgiving is still a recognized holiday even though it’s kind of got swept up into what’s now become a blended two month holiday of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

And to me it really hasn’t become Christmas yet because I still haven’t heard the greatest Christmas song of all time, “Grandma Got Ran Over By Reindeer.” So I can still focus on Thanksgiving.

And I’ve written this before but the best observance of Thanksgiving that came to my attention occurred when I heard about this family who dresses up in their Halloween costumes and hunted for Easter Eggs under the Christmas tree on Thanksgiving day. Now that’s awesome.

And of course life has imitated art as people now actually acknowledge “Festivus For The Rest of Us,” on December 23, the holiday invented by George Constanza’s father on Seinfeld because he became so disillusioned with Christmas.

And it was clear he became disillusioned with Thanksgiving as well because part of the tradition of Festivus was to do the opposite of what we do on Thanksgiving and that’s to talk about what we’re thankful for. Instead on Festivus as George’s father put you get around the dinner table for the “airing of the grievances.” And as George’s father said when this part of the Festivus tradition was being “celebrated” in the Constanza home, “I’ve got a lot of problems with you people.”

Of course I know this is all in fun and I have no problem with having fun with the holidays. But I also know any kind of airing of the grievances, especially on Thanksgiving, really isn’t the right thing to do. So don’t do it.

I’m also continuing to hope that some television stationstreaming service-whatever they are will do a 24-hour marathon of the greatest Thanksgiving episode ever on Thanksgiving day just as TBS does the 24-hour marathon of “A Christmas Story” on Christmas. And that’s the Thanksgiving episode of “WKRP in Cincinnati” in which Les Nessman had to describe the “humanity” of live turkeys being dropped from a helicopter out of the sky. “As God is my witness — I thought turkeys could fly,” WKRP general manager Arthur Carlson said.

I’ve also written before I really don’t care what you say to me, “Merry Christmas,” “Happy Holidays” or even “Season’s Greetings.” And I have to admit if you say “Happy Festivus” or “Happy Hallowthanksmas” to me, you’ll really make my day.

As I’ve written before “Happy Holidays” is definitely really OK with me because what you’re really saying is “Happy Holy Days,” although yes, admittedly it’s become this generic greeting to cover a number of holidays that’s celebrated this time of year.

But the “Holy Days” also cover the 12 days of Christmas through January 5. January 6 recognizes the Epiphany, the day of the arrival of the Wise Men.

There are actually those in the world who still celebrate all of the “Holy Days,” so at least to them “Happy Holidays” is definitely an appropriate thing to say.

Back to Thanksgiving it’s kind of a tricky holiday to celebrate. As Lois on Family Guy said for whatever reason we eat at about 2 or 2:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. I guess it’s because there’s so much food we really only need to eat one meal the entire day.

And after we gorge ourselves we need several hours to sleep it off before having the pie. But what about breakfast? Do we eat breakfast? A light breakfast?

I think brunch is out of the question, although that reminds me about a story a good friend of mine, the late Jason Baker, told. I won’t go into the details but his story about “Thanksgiving brunch” was absolutely hilarious. Let’s just say Jason didn’t want to have anything to do with “Thanksgiving brunch” and definitely preferred a “Thanksgiving dinner.”

And if we go without breakfast of course we’re going to snack on something, so we really have to pace ourselves. When to snack — and how much to snack on — before the actual Thanksgiving meal can actually be quite a task.

You don’t want to snack too early. You don’t want to snack too late. And you definitely don’t want to snack on too much.

Of course that one family has Easter eggs to snack on if they choose.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!