“Thanksgiving is wonderful and for all kinds of reasons. To begin with, it has the commendable effect of staving off Christmas … Moreover, Thanksgiving remains a pure holiday, largely unsullied by commercialization. It involves no greeting cards, no trees to trim, no perplexed hunt through drawers and cupboards for decorations. I love the fact that at Thanksgiving all you do is sit at a table and try to get your stomach into the approximate shape of a beach ball and then go and watch a game of football on TV. This is my kind of holiday. But perhaps the nicest, and certainly the noblest, aspect of Thanksgiving is that it gives you formal, official occasion to give thanks for all those things which you should be grateful. I think this is a wonderful idea, and I can’t believe that it hasn’t been picked up by more countries.”
—Bill Bryson, I’m a Stranger Here Myself
Related posts: “Thanksgiving” and “Concerning Thanksgiving.”
I couldn’t agree more