When I was a kid, there was only one holiday. THE holiday. Christmas. Presents. Santa. Presents. Food. Presents. Parties. Presents. It was all about December 25th.

Then I grew up, got married and had kids of my own.

Christmas is now one of my least favorite holidays. It’s just way too hard. All the decorating, the baking, the shopping, the wrapping, the get-togethers. And it’s all gotta sparkle magically. Argh.
At this point in my life, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Think about it. It’s the perfect holiday.

1. No decorating required. Now I do a bit of autumn/Thanksgiving decorating, but it’s not a lot. Takes me about 15 minutes to change my dining room tablecloth and centerpiece, add some turkey, corn, pumpkin and scarecrow decorations to my living room, and we’re appropriately festive.

2.  No gifts to select, hunt down, purchase, hide and wrap. No e-mails back and forth to find out what Uncle Joe wants this year. No Amazon wish lists. No breaking the family budget to buy little Timmy the X-Box he’ll die without. No racing out at some ridiculous hour to fight psychotic shoppers over the last X-Box at Wal-Mart at the fabulous sale price that will save you $20.

3. No insanely long list of holiday activities that we must complete or risk breaking ages-old family tradition, thus emotionally scarring little Timmy and Janie for their lives.

4. No exclusion. I can wish anyone and everyone a happy Thanksgiving 100% worry-free. Anybody I encounter anywhere can participate if they want. Thanksgiving’s not a Christian holiday, a Jewish holiday, a Muslim holiday, a black or white or lovers’ or Irish-American or anything else. Even my foreign students enjoy the time off and seem to regard Thanksgiving as a quaint, harmless tradition.

A few of my non-American students were curious about my family’s customs and seemed bemused by my answers. They wanted to know what we do on this day of giving thanks. That’s what made me realize why I love this holiday so much. What do we do?  Well, we cook, we eat, we watch football and nap. What could be better than that?

If you think Christmas is better, more power to you. Enjoy the beginning of your season, marked by the doorbuster, pre-dawn sales at department stores around the country. I’ll be in bed, sleeping off my turkey binge.

Happy Thanksgiving!