Turkeys Celebrate An Early December, #DontForgetThanksgiving

By Phineas J. Stone

Somewhere on the vast farms in the vast open space where turkeys are raised for our Thanksgiving tables, those very turkeys have heard that Christmas trees have been stationed in the front of Home Depot, and in unison, they are gobbling sweet victory.

It was barely mid-November and the leaves had not yet fully plummeted to the ground when the television was telling me it was already a “December to Remember.”

So it is that Christmas this year has come inexplicably earlier than its typical early entrance.

I believe it was two weeks ago that I flipped the radio on and heard Christmas music.

The day after Halloween, I went to the Home Depot in South Bay to pick up a piece of plywood, and lo and behold, the BBQ grills in the front of the store were long gone and replaced with all sorts of plastic, make that “artificial,” Christmas trees.

I had to do a double take.

It wasn’t like they were just unloading them that day; they had been there.

Now all last weekend during the football games on Saturday and Sunday, those ludicrous Lexus car commercials started playing, telling us it’s a “December to Remember.”

Who in the world buys a Lexus for Christmas?

Maybe there are people out there who get a large bonus for the end of the year, and so at some point they decide to put it towards a new vehicle – perhaps even a Lexus. But come on; no “qualified buyer” is sneaking out to the Lexus dealership alone, negotiating terms on a lease or a purchase price, arranging financing, getting it registered and insured, taking delivery on some other day, and then driving it into their circular driveway on Christmas morning to surprise their spouse.

And we can’t forget the deal is predicated on “certain terms and conditions.”

It’s so unrealistic I want to write them a letter.

They’ve had that same campaign barraging the airwaves every Christmas (or make that Thanksgiving) for the past several years.

But instead of a letter, a younger friend of mine suggested I get a hashtag (#) started.

“How do I do that? And what is it?” I asked enthusiastically.

He showed me how to put it on the Twitter, and we decided to call it “#DontForgetThanksgiving.” I tried to put punctuation in the phrase and do the typical spacing, but he said that would ruin it.

So there it is, I’ve started a hashtag, and now I’m told we must wait for it to catch on.

I’m not sure if I should be expecting a phone call to let me know it caught on, or if there’s some other way of finding out.

Nevertheless, my statement has been made, and I feel better for it. My outrage has subsided, and I guess that’s pretty much what social media is all about – beaming something out to the supposed world to make oneself feel heard and whole again, whether or not the world even notices.

Thanksgiving gets pushed further and further into the background each year because it brings no retail action except for at the grocery store.

Christmas is a grand old time, but my favorite memories as an adult and a child tend to be around Thanksgiving when it comes to togetherness and family.

Cooking, cleaning the house, playing football on the Greenie, raking the last of the leaves, consulting the packie owner, playing board games and hitting the store for food shoppin’ as a unit – those things just don’t allow us to avoid one another like during the rest of the year.

Of

course, every Thanksgiving means a mad rush to the store to get something critical that we’ve forgotten.

Last year, my friend was relaxing the night before – kicking his feet up and ready for five days of relaxation. Then his wife screamed from the kitchen.

Having been married awhile, and having survived many Thanksgivings, he told me he knew exactly what that meant. It meant he was going to have to get out of the chair and go get something.

“We have no flour,” she yelled at him from the kitchen. “Can you go out and get some flour before everything closes.”

Of course most things were closed, but the Tedeschi’s still had its light on, and my buddy lit out of the house without a word to his wife in order to get the errand done with all haste.

He walked into the store, went up and down the aisle with several other focused men and teenage boys – all on the same critical errand – and finally found some flowers.

Relieved, he bought them and ran back home as fast as possible (Note: the Bruins were playing a home game on television).

There he stood in the kitchen before his wife, coat still on and proudly holding the prettiest bunch of daisies anyone had ever seen.

It was the third period before he sat back down in his chair, and the Bruins were already down two goals.

Have a great Thanksgiving from Mr. Boston, and #DontForgetThanksgiving (do hashtags work in print?).

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.