10 reasons Thanksgiving is better than Christmas

For Christmas, I can sport a fake beard, wear a huge, black belt, and say, “Ho, ho, ho,” all day. But for Thanksgiving, I can grow a real beard, wear a belt buckle on my hat, and annoy people with the Chicken Dance song.

Hmm… tough call. Here’s why I vote Thanksgiving:

1. No pressure to give gifts: Not that I hate gifts, but you know all the stress that can go into picking gifts, buying them, and coordinating to give them away. That’s all gone from Thanksgiving.
2. The meal matters more: Since most people aren’t sharing gifts on Thanksgiving, the focus is the food, which, if you like food, is wonderful.
3. Easy to add extra people: What if someone extra shows up at a Christmas party? It’s a big scramble to stealthily grab the standby present from the closet. At Thanksgiving, though, there’s always more than enough food to go around, no matter who comes.
4. Naps: Need I say more about this?
5. Less commercialized: Christmas had a lot going for it, especially for me as a Christian. Heck, it has Christ right in its name, it’s based on celebrating His birth, and it racks up some of the highest church attendance of the year. But now with blinking Rudolph in the show, literally, it kind of feels like we’re just taking Christ’s name in vain. I like the less neon holiday better.
6. Feels non-conformist: Maybe this one just works for me, but there’s something extra cool about liking a holiday that’s relatively forgotten otherwise. I mean, who else really says it’s their favorite? I guess I like being the odd man out.
7. Begins the anticipation: Christmas is one of the last breaks before the longishness of winter really sets in. Thanksgiving is just the beginning. The party’s just getting started. It’s like Friday night, instead of the Sunday night.
8. Runs into Black Friday: While we’re talking weekends, Thanksgiving has the added benefit of wonderful sales the next day. I didn’t buy it for a long time, but now I use it as an excuse to hang out with friends way too early in the morning. The day after Christmas is just the end of Christmas music.
9. Christian roots: You can talk all you want about Thanksgiving being about the pilgrims’ gratefulness to the natives for corn on the cob, but I’m pretty sure their gratitude ran deeper than that. While Christmas as we know it might have some good intentions built in, its roots are a little more suspect. Thanksgiving was awesome from the start.
10. Promotes gratitude: Instead of asking people what they want or got for Christmas, you get to ask what people are thankful for. And that, by itself, is a reason to be thankful. And love it.

Happy Thanksgiving.