Let's make it official. Starting with The *Disappearing* of Thanksgiving

I really love your enthusiasm for my holiday rants. And not just because I love to rant (which hullooooo - is my favorite) but because it always feels good to not be alone in one's opinions of things. And there you guys are, all "Yay! It's Finny Rants About The Holidays time!", making me all warm and fuzzy inside.

And, isn't that what the holidays are really about? Feeling warm and fuzzy inside?

Yeah - I used to think so, too, until people got all full up with their retarded Holiday Crazy and began snuffing out the warm fuzziness that *could* be a part of the holidays if they'd all just stop being idiots and starting full scale riots over video game consoles and such.

Which is why I'm declaring December on this blog to be How Dumbasses Are Ruining The Holidays Month.

Because there are SO many ways that dumbasses are ruining the holidays beyond just the fugly-fying of their homes with absurd decorations when they should be spending that time and money, say, MOWING THEIR DAMN LAWNS SO THAT CHEETAHS STOP USING IT FOR CAMOUFLAGE.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

What I'm planning to do here is trot out all the ways in which dumbasses are standing between all of us and a warm, fuzzy holiday season, one post at a time. And, by all means, feel free to add your peeves to the comments so that I can fold them into the ranting to come.

We'll start with a post that I drafted up before Thanksgiving when I was in the throes of an enthusiastic happy hour with Bubba and all on fire about a sighting from my commute home on November 9th.

Remember that date, November 9th, because it sets the tone for the post below.

Hope you're all looking forward to a month of holiday ranting interspersed with ironical displays of my holiday endeavors because even though there are dumbasses out there intent on ruining my warm fuzzy good holiday times, I never stop trying to fight back with seasonal baked goods and some measure of good tidings.

For that post already...

I nearly caused a low speed traffic accident by slowing down to a shocked halt in front of a house a block over from mine when I saw that creepy telling glow of OH SHIT THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS ARE UP ALREADY.

Net lights over shrubs, string lights hung all mamby pamby along the gutters, some horseshit wound around the porch columns. ON NOVEMBER 9th. Waaaaaaaaaayyyyy more than a month before Christmas.

Meanwhile, do people even celebrate Thanksgiving anymore? Because I think this country, as a whole, has forgotten about Thanksgiving in its ever hurrying rush to celebrate Christmas.

Not to get all, "When I was a kid" on you, like some crazy old bat (which I don't yet qualify for at my spring chickeny 33 years of age), but I do remember a time when we at least waited until the day after Thanksgiving to get all HOORAY CHRISTMAS IS ONLY 30 DAYS AWAY and shit.

Like, there'd be the mad dash to the mall on the day after Thanksgiving (though I will NOT call it Black Friday because I just will not) and, soon after, there'd be the lighting of some tree in Rockefeller Center in New York City, because it's super relevant to the rest of the country to light a tree in a city thousands of miles away, and the chorus of holiday stressing out would be set to annoying jingling music in every store, commercial and radio station.

AFTER THANKSGIVING.

But I think there's been some secret agreement made amongst those who really want Christmas RIGHT NOW to *disappear Thanksgiving* in some sort of mob hit so that they don't have to wait one additional hot second before dousing themselves in egg nog and running headlong into a Wal-Mart frenzy at an ungodly hour to maim people with shopping carts and also save, like, $2.50 on a Xbox.

I think they're trying to *wack* Thanksgiving.

I mean, when you think about it, what really stands in the way of Christmas anymore? Halloween? Pffftt. Certainly not.

I mean, I saw Halloween decorations in the stores for about two weeks and THE SECOND that shit was over, all that stuff got packed into boxes and shipped back to whatever storage facility holds it all for next year. The shelves weren't even cold before the Christmas stuff filled its place. Meanwhile the shelf space next to the Halloween stuff had Christmas stuff in it already, so it's not like the writing wasn't on the wall.

It was. Halloween is on shaky ground in the Obstacles Between America and Christmas department.

And what else is there between us and Forever Year Round Christmas? Hardly anything.

I mean, Easter gets a little play, and there's Fourth of July that people like because there are explosives, outdoor cooking and beer, but no one's getting up at 4am to race into a department store to buy an American flag or anything.

What I'm getting at, here, is that the holidays are fine things in themselves, but the Crazy that surrounds them is, like, totally gross.

So when I see my neighbor's Christmas lights up on November 9th, it makes me want to jam a pen in my eye and/or go on a killing spree with a giant candy cane.

Thankfully, there are already many stabby instruments making their appearance around my neighborhood, so at least I won't be at odds in my hunt for a killing instrument.