Thanksgiving

Since we will be out of town over this coming holiday, we had a great dinner last night courtesy of the GF herself. Halloween may be my favorite holiday in all of its aspects, but Thanksgiving is a great one too. Firstly, you don't have to spend ridiculous amounts of money buying gifts, nor do you have to spend any time wondering what you want for yourself. The holiday is completely stress-less and delicious to boot! Christmas is great, but I like the atmosphere surrounding that holiday more than the actual holiday itself. Sometime next month I'll write about the things I like that put me into a Christmas mood, but right now here are some of the bonuses of the November holiday season."Garfield's Thanksgiving":
Holiday specials don't really exist for Thanksgiving, but Garfield has a built-in character trait perfect for this particular holiday: gluttony. In this special, Jon, Garfield and Odie's owner, successfully invites the vet, Liz, over to the house for Thanksgiving dinner. She has recently put Garfield on a diet so he can't have any of the traditional Thanksgiving foods. In retaliation, Garfield ruins everything Jon makes, although Jon doesn't need too much help. Shortly thereafter, Liz takes Garfield off the diet in the "spirit of the season" I suppose, and Garfield than has to face the dinner that he ruined. But Jon's grandmother comes to the rescue and makes a full, perfect Thanksgiving dinner anyway, and everything is fine, until next month when Garfield sabotages Odie's Christmas gifts.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles:
It's hard to forget that this story takes place over the subtle tones of Thanksgiving. Most people associate it with Christmas, if they associate it with a holiday at all. Someone in the business, when asked about comedy writing, said that he writes the story first, and then adds the jokes in later, because without a good story, no movie is worth while. Planes, Trains and Automobiles is really funny, but has a good heart too. There isn't a better turn-around of a character than Steve Martin's Neil Page, when he figures out that John Candy's Del Griffith is homeless and not as stoic as he lets on. So Neil takes Del home with him and it's assumed that they become good friends, deep friends, if not daily drinking buddy-type friends. Oh, and there's this great scene at the rental car place with a lot of swearing. If it weren't for this two-minute scene, this movie would be PG and not R. (No one says "cocksucker" like Ian McShane, and no one says "fucking" like Steve Martin.)



Norman Rockwell:
Some people hate his stuff because it hits you over the head with traditional symbols of the holidays, but Norman Rockwell was an amazing painter, and I'll always be touched by his works. For Thanksgiving, Rockwell created the very famous "Thanksgiving", which is the family sitting at the table with the turkey about to be set in front of the patriarch for carving. But I prefer "Cousin Reginald Catches the Thanksgiving Turkey":

South Park episode #61, "Helen Keller, The Musical!":
Once again South Park manages to put me in the mood for the holidays with a musical based on "The Miracle Worker", but with a turkey jumping through a ring of fire. The episode is structurally based around "A Charlie Brown Christmas", as Timmy, the wheelchair-bound child, goes to the turkey farm to pick out a great turkey for the show, only to come back with Gobbles, a retarded turkey who isn't very smart and drags his head everywhere he goes. But it all works out and Gobbles ends up amazing everyone by jumping through the ring of fire anyway, and Timmy turns out to be the hero. There aren't any casualties, except for Kenny and Alinicia, the professional performing turkey who the kids hire when they find out that Timmy picked Gobbles to be in the show.

So there you have it, the things I like about Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving isn't always smiles and light, however. I remember one year when we all sat down to watch the highly anticipated premier of the XFL, Vince McMahon's pro football league. What a fucking waste. I guess it was pretty obvious that it wasn't going to be what people wanted: pro wrestling and football combined. But the cheerleaders were pretty hot, although the concept seemed to be stolen from BASEketball. Oh well.