Alrighty, retailers, commercials and the giant inflatable snowman in my neighbor’s yard…

GET OUT OF MY THANKSGIVING!!

I’m done with the most original and heartwarming holiday America has being ignored like a quiet middle child. I’ve had it with stores and radio stations playing 24-hour Christmas music while I’m still running the air conditioner at night. 

So this year I decided to strike back. Beginning in September, I put up a wreath on my front door that was a mixture of miniature pumpkins and Indian corn (which reminds me, I need to schedule a dentist appointment), and I erected a rather large ‘horn of plenty’ on the front porch. Elbowing Halloween out of the way, I began to play Thanksgiving music on October 1.

What is Thanksgiving music you ask? Well, certainly not the Indie artist also named Thanksgiving. That was a dreadful mistake. Not to mention glimpsing a rather rude title. But the very question posed is yet another example of Thanksgiving being taken advantage of. Because there really were songs written for the day, but they were pilfered for Christmas.

Jingle Bells, for example, was never intended to be a Christmas carol. It was written for Thanksgiving by James Lord Pierpont. Its original title was actually ‘One Horse Open Sleigh,’ and probably inspired by the sleigh races that were popular when published in 1857.

And you are easily forgiven if you didn’t know that ‘Over the River and Through the Wood’ has nothing to do with Christmas, especially since the original title of the poem by Lydia Maria Child was changed from ‘The New-England Boy’s Song about Thanksgiving Day.’ 

Guess that was too banal.  

But here is the third stanza which proves it:

‘One the river, and through the wood,

To have a first-rate play.

Hear the bells ring

‘Ting-a-ling-ding’,Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!’

So I figure fair is fair. If Christmas is going to steal Thanksgiving songs, there’s no reason Thanksgiving can’t do the same. Just rewrite a few of the lyrics: 

‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Thanksgiving, 

everywhere you go,

take a look at the five and ten, you’re stuffing yourself again,

And to ER with chest pains you will go!’

or…

‘Roast yourself a merry little turkey,

clean the house at dawn,

watch the family gorge themselves

till football’s on….’

And how can we forget ‘Grandma got run over by a Reindeer.’

On second thought, nope.

Christmas can keep that sucker.