Thanksgiving, All For One And One For All

How about some Thanksgiving Day trivia? First, a true/false question: Thanksgiving in America is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November.

The correct answer is ... well, it is for now.

The law making that so was passed in 1941 to clear up confusion caused by the Great Confuser, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who, from 1939-41, moved the holiday to the third weekend in November. Roosevelt's thinking: it would help the economy by extending the Christmas sales season another week. What Roosevelt missed: the idea of messing with Thanksgiving tradition drove half the country crazy.

During the three years in question, about 50 percent of the states observed real Thanksgiving and the other half observed what came to be known as "Franksgiving" - a combination of Franklin and Thanksgiving, held on the third Thurdsday. A few states - I'm guessing union strongholds - declared both Thursdays to be a holiday. Although the geographic split between the Thanksgiving/Franksgiving doesn't illustrate this perfectly, polling made it clear that the official date of Thanksgiving was a partisan issue. Democrats, like FDR, thought Franksgiving was just fine. Republicans thought it was another one of those crazy Roosevelt things. A cartoon by legendary animator Tex Avery, shown in theaters before movies in 1940, suggested that what was really intended was one Thanksgiving for Democrats, and then another, for Republicans, a week later.

Blue holiday, red holiday. Now there's the two-party system hard at work.

These days, there's no need for pushing Thanksgiving up to accelerate the holiday shopping season. We solved that by pushing the start of the Christmas sales season to Columbus Day. But there still might be some merits in celebrating Thanksgiving on two different days.

You know. One day for men and ... one day for women.

Women's Thanksgiving would be pulled right off the cover of Southern Living magazine or from a recording of Paula Dean's Food Network pre-Thanksgiving special. It would be all about the food and the table decorations and the chestnuts roasting over an open fire (wait, wrong holiday), and the primary entertainment would be long, heartfelt discussions about the food, the table decorations ...

Men's Thanksgiving would begin at about 11:30 a.m., or whenever the NFL pre-game show comes on, and would end around 8 p.m. when the Cowboys' game goes off. If the men could borrow some food from the Women's Thanksgiving - turkey will keep for a week won't it? How about stuffing? - that would be great. If not, we'll send out for a pizza or some wings. Okay, turkey wings.

Okay, maybe that's not such a good idea. In fact, if you think about it, any serious debate over the proper focus of the holiday - food and family or Lions and Packers? - is downright foolishness. There are plenty of land mines in most family get-together fields without throwing in silly stereotypes from the Men are from Mars, Women from Venus continuum. Thanksgiving, like most other days of the year, ought to include consideration of the sensibilities of others and hard work in the art of compromise.

For most men, this will mean remembering that inviting a horde of strangers - or worse yet, in-laws and other family types - into your house may induce a bit of stress for your spouse. It may mean opening yourself up to a little sentimentality and talking about some stuff (food, family, holiday feelings) that are out of your comfort zone. That's okay. Thanksgiving will make you comfortable in many other ways.

This is not to say that all testosterone-filled holiday traditions are taboo. Go ahead. Watch some football, ask Uncle Bert about the details of his drive down, cut a post-meal belch or two. But all things in moderation (especially the belching).

Thanksgiving can be your holiday, but as FDR found out, it belongs to a lot of other people, too.

As always, if you want to discuss this further, call us at 704.895.8976.

 

Tucker Mitchell