Thanksgiving: The Best Holiday of the Year

Thanksgiving is unequivocally the best holiday of the year. Though it consistently ranks below Christmas on many people’s personal holiday rankings, it deserves more credit.

 

Of course, the most obvious reason to praise Thanksgiving is the way it is celebrated. Thanksgiving is practically synonymous with food and feasts. Admittedly, if you aren’t a fan of turkey, pies, mashed potatoes, etc. (and I know many people aren’t) Thanksgiving will probably hold significantly less appeal. On the other hand, Thanksgiving food is fairly varied and most people don’t hate all the traditional dishes. More importantly, perhaps, a Thanksgiving feast provides an opportunity for creativity. This year, for example, my family and I had the typical pies but Laura and I also made banana cake. Last year someone brought sautéed mushrooms. Though these kinds of food definitely weren’t on the Pilgrims menu, they are delicious and any holiday that provides an excuse to eat good food has a lot going for it. Ultimately then, even if you don’t love Thanksgiving food, you can still use the day as an excuse to make and eat a lot of other delicious things.

 

While food is certainly a big part of Thanksgiving, I would argue that is isn’t the most important part. Instead, the most significant part of Thanksgiving is being able to spend time with family or friends. Again, I know that not everyone enjoys this part of the holiday. I also know that there are many people who can’t get together with their families. However, the fact that the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is the biggest travel day of the year suggests that celebrating with loved ones is a typical or at least common thing to do. What’s more, whether you get along with your family or not, Thanksgiving is among the least stressful ways to get together. You don’t to worry about things like presents, and the attention is never on one person as it might be during a wedding, birthday celebration, graduation, etc. 

 

There are a number of other reasons to appreciate Thanksgiving. It takes place in the fall, for example, so it’s not as cold as Christmas but it’s not as hot as the Fourth of July. It also means a day off from work for most people and two days for many (and three for students and teachers). The list could go on and on, but the point is that Thanksgiving genuinely has more to offer than most holidays.

 

Of course, Thanksgiving is also good because of the ways that it isn’t celebrated. As I mentioned above, there are no presents as there is with Christmas. Obviously if you love getting (or giving) things that might seem like a negative thing, but realistically presents raise stress. You have to find just the right thing for everyone, worry about whether they’ll like it, and then act surprised/impressed/excited about what they gave you no matter how you actually feel. Sometimes none of those things are a big deal, but other times they cause serious tensions. At very least Christmas requires everyone to put on a show and by comparison Thanksgiving comes off as a much more sincere holiday.

 

Thanksgiving also isn’t commercialized the way that Christmas or Halloween are. To be honest, the commercial aspect of Christmas is really the only part of the holiday that makes me feel the seasonal “spirit”; I can’t, for example, get into Christmas unless I’ve seen tons of Christmas commercials. However, Thanksgiving’s charm is that you don’t have to “get into” the holiday in the first place. There is relatively little buildup and, consequently, no let down when the day actually comes. As an adult I can’t stress this point enough. Though I loved Christmas as a child it is inevitably disappointing as an adult when I know that there is no magical, Santa-related ending and that the best thing that will happen is that I’ll get to sleep in. Those things are great, but hardly worthy of weeks and weeks of anticipation. Thanksgiving, by contrast, includes the best parts about Christmas without the huge anticipation and subsequent let down.

 

I could go on and on about how much better Thanksgiving is than all other holidays (in the U.S.). Instead, however, suffice it to say that in these first days of December I’m reminded of how much more thankful I am for Thanksgiving than all other holidays.