Seasonal Spirits
For various reasons, this is the first Thanksgiving of which I’ve partaken in several years, and I think that I’ve finally found an aspect of the festival that’s uniquely appealing to me.
Generally, I enjoy the thematic spirit that pervades the wider world whenever the horizon allows a glimpse of an upcoming holiday.
"November's here? Frost those windows!"
However, the fact that Thanksgiving, which is already limited to a handful of places around the world, varies its timing so wildly between those locations means that the heady inundations of ostentatious cheer that surround the arrival of more broadly observed events are relatively scarce for this one. This seems to give it a rare sense of intimacy in a way. In the absence of constant reminders for this revelry, it feels more like something that’s celebrated on private, personal terms. I’m not supposing that this affords any inherent superiority, but the tonal difference it gives is somewhat refreshing.
The comparative lack of promotion for Thanksgiving also carries the benefit of making Halloween the dominant focus of the entire season, which means that the durational difference between the world’s observance of that celebration and mine is only around 10 months.
Bonus Question?
Battle of holiday egg products! Cream eggs versus eggnog!
In light of their realisation of the sheer madness of restricting the sale of a prized treat to a mere fraction of the year, I'm giving this one to the Cadbury team. Because Easter can start in winter now.
