A proposal: injecting new spirit into Thanksgiving

In the not-so-distant past, as I completed a Thanksgiving Day fun run — one of relatively few local community observances associated with the holiday outside its traditional turkey dinner — I noticed among the event’s onlookers a man and a small child sporting flamboyant turkey-themed hats.

The thought occurred that this was perhaps the most extravagant display of Thanksgiving holiday spirit I had ever seen in real life (sadly, I’ve never made it to the New York parade). Thereafter came another reflection:

As it currently exists, it seems to me there is simply not enough substance to the Thanksgiving holiday to prevent or reverse the widely observed phenomenon — delighting some and decried by others — of its being overtaken in the public consciousness a month ahead of time by Christmas.

To my mind, Thanksgiving has always been like a sort of Christmas prelude — a “little Christmas” that contributes to the build-up toward the main event. It is my impression that it occupies a similar place for a great swath of the public at large in the modern day, and more so year-by-year. I partake of the Thanksgiving observance as it comes and fitly stuff myself, but have already been playing and singing my Christmas music and delighting in the rise of the associated decorative aesthetic around town for weeks by that time.

Rather than vindictively rub the noses of early-Christmas naysayers in this reality (an act which might be seen to clash with the Christmas spirit), however, my intent in this piece is to offer them a constructive alternative to their negativity, pointing them toward a new and worthier course. If you’ve read this far, bear with me for a couple more paragraphs as I lay the last of the groundwork for my ultimate proposition.

Opponents of Christmas expansionism need not fear that Yuletide observance will meaningfully reach back into October at any time in the foreseeable future. Why? Because Halloween — not a civic holiday, it is true, but a folk celebration of the first order — has its own vivid and compelling subculture that effectively dominates the public imagination through that month. There is a distinct decorative Halloween aesthetic of gothic and macabre imagery that visibly remakes entire neighborhoods for weeks at a time each fall; a rich trove of seasonal entertainment spanning from horror movies to television specials like the Charlie Brown animated feature; a widely observed community-level cultural ritual (trick-or-treating); etc.

Once Halloween is done, where do the people turn their now-invigorated festive energies? To that which offers them irresistible lighting displays; trees girded with gifts; nativities; mall Santas; Salvation Army bell-ringers; hosts of cherished films; a vast, genre-traversing corpus of music; neighborhood carolers bringing a sample of that sound door-to-door — the list goes on. The Christmas season provides a powerful escape from much of the ugliness of modern life, and does so with an impressively broad and multifaceted canon of materials and observances.

Thanksgiving, by comparison, does not offer much to hold back the wave of anticipation that Christmas invites, and the petulant demand that it be treated as though it does has proven ineffective. Neither Halloween nor Christmas achieved its current status through observers’ disparagement of other holidays, and Thanksgiving is unlikely to find a place on equal footing with them through that method.

My proposal, then, is this: If you are among those vocally dismayed by the increasing dominance of Christmas culture as early as Nov. 1 and indignant for the honor of the Thanksgiving holiday, you may instead channel those energies into more productive use by working to positively build up the cultural stature of Thanksgiving. Adorn your properties with Thanksgiving-themed displays fit to win the hearts of your neighbors and inspire imitation; write stories, poems and songs in anticipation and commemoration of the Thanksgiving observance; form neighborhood-wide rituals of Thanksgiving goodwill; establish an elaborate workshop in a remote region to toil year-round producing Thanksgiving-themed delights of one form or another.

Perhaps that last clause took things too far, of course, but you get the gist. There is arguably some inherent challenge to this task arising from the fact that turkey is simply not the most fundamentally enthralling of meats (nor a meal centering upon it the most readily compelling of concepts), and yet the human imagination has surmounted greater obstacles before.

As an unabashed Christmas enthusiast, I personally make no strenuous objection to the rise of a two-month long Yuletide with Thanksgiving in a fundamentally subordinate role — but even I might be diverted somewhat from that indulgence were there a sufficiently appealing and substantial Thanksgiving culture to capture the imagination through the month of November. Should a renaissance of irresistible Thanksgiving tales, iconic characters, powerful themes and stirring visual iconography arise, the tide of the Yule might indeed be turned back a few weeks longer, and in a way that should arise from joy and delight rather than resentment. Perhaps there are yet-unmined riches and unexplored depths in the Thanksgiving tradition — new trails to be blazed or pilgrimages made in adding to it — and your efforts, reader, stand to make the difference.

It is incumbent on you, champions of Thanksgiving, to win others over, or else I say you should simply accept that they will continue hastening to early Christmas merriment each fall. You have another year to prepare.

Wendt is a part-time sports reporter for the Lewiston Tribune and Moscow-Pullman Daily News, as well as an actor, musician and boys' tennis coach at Pullman High School. He may be contacted at cwendt@lmtribune.com.