You were right in front of me this whole time… Thanksgiving, it’s you. You’re my favorite holiday! It was so obvious and yet I never realized my true love until I started to write this blog post. As a Jew, Christmas wasn’t even in the running. I’m not a masochist so most of the Jewish holidays aren’t contenders for the title of my favorite holiday. On Yom Kippur we starve ourselves. Passover, we again, deprive ourselves and sing that wretched song Dai, da-ye-nu (or as ever single Jewish person I’ve ever met has parodied – Dy, Dy, Ana). I cry every birthday and I still have to go to work on President’s Day. But Thanksgiving is like the cornbread on that beautiful buffet table – ain’t nothing wrong with that. Those markers aren’t called magic for nothing, and it’s only around Thanksgiving when you can pull them out to draw a turkey by outlining your own hand – so fun!
Thanksgiving is a day filled with eating, parade watching, eating, watching football, heavy drinking, and more eating. Check my resume – along with sleeping, eating is one of my top hobbies! Even the year I ate a noodle casserole that landed me in the hospital with salmonella poisoning is now just a fond memory of the Thanksgiving I lost 15 pounds. Who loses weight at Thanksgiving – how great is that?
The days leading up to Thanksgiving are sacred. I cherish my time in the car listening to the radio, knowing that the airwaves will soon be overtaken with the excruciatingly painful sounds of nonstop Christmas music. I would like to offer this as an alternative to waterboarding – just a thought. These are also the last few days before I must acknowledge the nagging question of what am I going to do for New Years Eve. In this brief window, Thanksgiving is all I see on the horizon. And this year, we’ve got a once in a lifetime Hanukkah/Thanksgiving crossover. Usually, Hanukkah is the red-headed step-child of winter holidays but it has teamed up with Thanksgiving to create one super holiday. All over the internet, Thanksgivukkah is trending. Next to Zedd’s Stay the Night/Clarity Remix, Thanksgivukkah is the best mashup around! How can we make Thanksgiving even better? Throw in lots of presents! Given that I work in entertainment and have the salary of a 15-year-old lifeguard, I’m pretty excited to get some good gifts (and return them for straight up cash). And if someone wants to add some latkes to the holiday spread, I’d be all for it. I’d trade out cranberry sauce and stuffing for latkes and applesauce any day.
I leave you with a link to Buzzfeed, if you haven’t already left me first. Back in the day when “Must See TV” on NBC was actually just that, it was a tradition in my family to gather post-dinner around the TV to watch the “Friends” Thanksgiving episode. Those days may be over, but with Hanukkah amongst us, we may just get a miracle, and have eight crazy channels filled with repeats of these classic episodes:
I hope all of you have a fabulous Thanksgiving and I am thankful to everyone who continues to read my ramblings, complaints, and non-sequitur thoughts – you are my pumpkin pie to my Thanksgiving meal – I just want to eat you on up.
