Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. A day dedicated to football, family, food, and giving thanks. Somehow this great American feast has avoided all the corporate commercialism that’s tainted the rest of our holidays.
However, while Thanksgiving itself has remained relatively pure, each year it seems the Christmas shopping season overlaps T-day a little more. We all grumble, but no one does anything about it. Well, that was until Doug Matthews came along.
Last November, Doug wrote a blog post on Allrecipes.com entitled, “Respect the Bird.” There he made his case for taking back Thanksgiving from Madison Avenue, and the response from the community was overwhelming. A subsequent national survey found that 82 percent of home cooks think Christmas is marketed too early, which results in the Thanksgiving holiday getting less attention than it deserves.
Do you agree with Doug? I certainly do, and favor any movement that will help keep that insidious Christmas music out of the stores for a few more days. To aid the cause, my friends at Allrecipes have created a dedicated site, RespectTheBird.com, where you can show your support for this movement by taking the Respect the Bird Pledge.
I hope you head over to take a look, and as always, enjoy…a Santa-free Thanksgiving!
16 comments:
#thirdworldproblems
I think you should just be like us Canadians and have Thanksgiving in early October. Problem solved :)
From the day after Thanksgiving (my second fav holiday), until Christmas certainly seems to be plenty of days to listen to songs and be overwhelmed by advertising. I feel we have rather lost the ideal of Christmas, which remains my favorite holiday. I really enjoyed the Respect the Bird blog at Allrcipes. Thanks, Chef John
Your fan, Terra from Cripple Creek, Colorado
You should be happy for Thanksgiving! We don't have anything like that here in Scandinavia - so some stores have already put out nasty santas and gift ideas - some as early as september.
Horrifying because the reason is simple: CONSUME MORE.
I have already stopped visiting malls and such because I know what I'll see. It's there already.
In the Netherlands we have 'Sinter Klaas' (or Saint Nicholas). We make our kids believe that he comes to here every year to hand out presents on his birth day, all the way from Spain none the less. A type of treat associated with the whole ordeal are 'pepernoten' (small walnut sized Dutch Windmill cookies, I'm led to believe that's what our 'speculaas' is sold as on your end of the Atlantic). The pepernoten usually hit the shelves half way September, and about a month before the good saint actually arrives everyone is already sick to the stomach of them.
Voted for you (both categories) for The Tasty Awards .. good luck!
The Wally World near here is already setting up for Christmas. It's ridiculous.
Actually, Emily, Halloween has become so commercial that I'm afraid Thanksgiving would be lost in early October also!
i want to respect YOUR drumstick mr john, grrrrrrr
Mary F
I think Pam is right on this issue. Emily, your statement "I think you should just be like us Canadians" is inherently racist. Please try to remember that this is my food blog
-Mary F
LOL I ment " A " food blog
Mary F
I'm pretty sure your joking, but I don't think that Canadians actually count as a "race."
Tell that to the Inuit.
-Mary F
And it should be you're*
-Mary F
homonyms.
-Mary F
You can't exactly count that as being "racist" but I will say it is not right. We had the first national holiday to give thanks, and honestly we should keep it the way we made it. As much as I respect Canada (surprisingly I sing its anthem more than my own country's) I really think that Canada should have the freedom to do what it wants with its holidays. You go talk to Obama and see what he thinks of your little idea. Cheers,
Really??
Life is too short to take things so seriously. She just meant it works well having the holidays spread out a little more. I'm Canadian and I understood your comment just fine! I enjoy the couple of months between turkeys - I enjoy each of them more. We then have Ham for New Years. Yummy!
Chef John, thanks for the wonderful recipes and videos! :)
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