Why Thanksgiving is better than you think

Halloween didn't go quietly this year. Judging by the number of Trick-Or-Treaters we've had living in three states in the past five years – about 18 total – I was under the impression that the spooky pagan holiday was on the verge of collapse.

Those feelings changed after a horrifying 106 youngsters rung our doorbell demanding candy this year. Perhaps Connecticut's rich history of heretics, witches and headless horseman gives Halloween higher holiday status than in, say, New Mexico.

With Halloween out of the way and no candy left over to make it all worth it, we now look forward to Thanksgiving, which is by far the best holiday we have to choose from in America.

It goes without saying that the most glorious aspect of Thanksgiving is that it is centered on binge eating. It's the one day where stuffing your giant face is completely and utterly socially acceptable and encouraged, if not downright required or coerced.

But for me what makes Thanksgiving so great – after the eating of course – is that it has somehow survived a commercial takeover.

I mean, when Easter gets to the point where it engulfs four aisles at Target, you know the corporate hijacking of holidays has become quite grave.

Most holidays – Valentine's Day, birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day – are all centered on what you will buy for whom. Beyond getting the day off, the only remarkable thing about Labor Day and Memorial Day are the sales advertised at stores like J.C. Penney. And how serious is the problem when our national economy convulses this way or that way depending on how much people muster to plunk down on others at Christmas? With money they don't have, no less.

But back to Thanksgiving. The only spending you're doing for Thanksgiving is at the grocery store. And face it, you were going anyway. You're just picking up a few extra items . . . like a bird that weighs as much as my dog.

In addition to subduing corporate America, Thanksgiving has apparently avoided something else that has attached itself to holidays: Music. If there's one thing that we like about holidays, other than spending money like it's not ours (it's not), it is holiday music.

We stage entire school Christmas performances just so we can showcase our beloved carols through the mouths of innocent children. Fourth of July is rife with patriotic propaganda. Easter has a host of crucifiction/ resurection hymns. New Years has its song whose title I still am unsure how to pronounce.

But Thanksgiving has been left alone. And Dido's "Thank You" or Andrew Gold's "Thank You For Being a Friend" don't count, contrary to one web site which ranks alleged "Thanksgiving Songs". (A couple Thanksgiving songs I'd like to see: "Amaizing Thanks," "Gord of Gords" and "O Cornucopia, We Thank Thee")

The only popular song I could find that mentions Thanksgiving specifically was Adam Sandler's "The Thanksgiving Song." (Imagine if there were just one popular Christmas song and that one song was called "The Christmas Tune and it was written and performed by Jack Black.)

Instead for Christmas you've got Silent Night packaged a hundred different ways. And then you've got to buy and send Christmas cards and then you have to buy all your presents, which forces everyone to the store at once because everyone put it off as long as possible which causes snarling holiday traffic, which makes everyone tired, cranky and moody. By the time the day rolls around, everyone is grumpy, in debt and depressed, then forced into contact with extended family. It's no wonder an innocent group of carolers can send someone right over the edge.

Thanksgiving, conversely, is a holiday with no fluff and no fat. No gifts, no songs, no candy and no symbolic explosions choreographed to music. Just right.