Don't shortchange Thanksgiving

Over at the Pensacola News Journal (pnj.com) writer Troy Moon has a great post about respecting Thanksgiving and fighting the Christmas creep.

Moon: Don't shortchange Thanksgiving

What we really need to be concerned about is the War on Thanksgiving, being waged by Christmas.

Black Friday is bad enough. But last year, the Christmas holiday season even swallowed Thanksgiving, to me, the best holiday of them all. A holiday built around family, friends, food and feasting. A day to count your blessings and enjoy the company of those you love most. But then again, some of us love the appliance aisle at the box store most of all.

Great to have another voice working to help keep the Thanksgiving holiday alive!

Check out the whole article over at pnj.com:
Moon: Don't shortchange Thanksgiving

Quartz Christmas Creep Calculator

Quartz news site has made a graph to extrapolate the future date of when the Christmas Creep will hit for years to come.

Apparently in London they are turning on the Christmas lights on November 1st, far earlier than they have in the past.

Taking that into account, there will be Christmas in July in our future some day.

Respect the turkey!

Read the whole article over at qz.com:

How long before we see Santa in July? Introducing Quartz’s Christmas Creep Calculator

Timely Tidings

Cartoon text:
We just wanted to wish you all-

A Happy Hallowee-!

WAP

MERRY CHRISTMAS!


From over at: ChaosLife by A & K

Ho Ho No

Cartoon text:
HO HO HO!
HELLO
EVERYO-

NO!
GET OUT!
IT'S OCTOBER
GET OUT!


From over at: Mandatory Roller Coaster

Time for Halloween and Thanksgiving

Just read a great post from Caroline Eagles blog chirish chatter over at Chicago Now:

I love America - Hallowe'en, Thanksgiving and only then Christmas

She's said in her post that in the US we celebrate Halloween and Thanksgiving before Christmas, whereas in Ireland and England they start celebrating the holiday even earlier.

And it's not just the shops. The media are just as bad - Time Out London has already published its guide to the jolliest activities and events for Christmas 2015 - in June. Time Out Chicago only did its guide last year in the middle of November. I listen to a magic radio that teleports me back to Norn Iron, reminding me how to say 'now' properly and where to buy the best soda bread - and already I've heard sleigh bells, a few 'Ho Ho Ho's and the dreaded 'C' word.

Sure enough as she posted, over at Timeout London they posted a guide to enjoying Christmas, in June of this year.


(Christmas in London - Timeout.com)

Glad to hear about people respecting Halloween and Thanksgiving and giving Christmas it's own time and place!

Give Thanks

Hopefully everyone is in a turkey coma, surrounded by friends and family enjoying a day where we can all sit back and give thanks for the things we have in life.

There are 364 other days in the year where we can stress about the things we have to do, stress about the things we need or want and go run around trying to finish all the things we want to accomplish in life, but this day of Thanksgiving is a great day to just stop for a moment, reflect on where we are, who we are and all the blessings we've been given in life.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.



(found this awesome pic posted by someone on twitter)

Thanksgiving Football

Don't forget to tune in and root for your favorite football team while you're chowing down on some pumpkin pie:


Chicago Bears vs. Detroit Lions - 12:30 PM on CBS


Philadelphia Eagles vs. Dallas Cowboys - 4:30 PM on Fox


Seattle Seahawks vs. San Francisco 49ers 8:30 PM on NBC

And if you're up early making your turkey dinners, turn on the parades!

Thanksgiving in Space!

Just because you're floating around in a space station 250 miles above the earth doesn't mean you can't enjoy a nice Thanksgiving dinner, right?



The astronauts on the International Space Station are going to have a little meal tomorrow to celebrate what they are thankful for. (My thoughts... oxygen maybe?)

American astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore, Terry Virts and Italian Samantha Cristoforetti are going will celebrate Turkey day in zero-g.

Check out the video from space.com:



From over at: space.com - Thanksgiving in Zero-G: Space Station Astronauts Enjoy 'Traditional' Dishes

See? Just trace your feathers like this and you've drawn a person!

Only two more days until Thanksgiving!

Hopefully everyone is enjoying the season of giving thanks.

And on Thanksgiving day, please remember that if you go shopping on that day, someone has to work that day and can't be at home with their family.

On the lighter side, here's a few funny comics we've seen floating around facebook!


Cartoon text:
See? Just trace your feathers like this and you've drawn a person!
Artist over at: speedbump.com



Cartoon text:
What's for dinner this year? If I told you that, I'd have to kill you.
Artist over at: bizarro.com

Who are you and what are you doing here before Thanksgiving?

Cartoon text:
Who are you and what are you doing here before Thanksgiving?

From over at: bizarro.com

Respect The Turkey Tweets!

Some great tweets out there right now under the #RespectTheTurkey hashtag!

Andy Lasselle ‏@AndySnacks
Can we put a moratorium on Xmas talk until Friday, November 28th please? #RespectTheTurkey

American Greetings‏@amgreetings
Are you frantically researching turkey recipes or already blasting "Jingle Bells?" Tell us if you #RespectTheTurkey!

Jen Snyder ‏@jensnyder
This is not acceptable. It's been like this since Halloween. #RespectTheTurkey

Suzanne Sanderson ‏@suzpeeps
Starting a movement!!! Who's with me?? #RespectTheTurkey

We agree! Tweet Tweet! I mean... Gobble Gobble!

Boycott Black Thursday

Another site has come along to join the cause for the fight to take back Thanksgiving!

Every voice counts!

Check out their facebook page over at facebook.com/boycottblackthursday

For every Christmas light lit before Thanksgiving

Cartoon text:
For every christmas light lit before thanksgiving An elf kills a baby reindeer

Thanks to J&D for this one.

Too Early for Christmas Music!

Some radio stations have already made the switch to Christmas music, with three weeks left still until Thanksgiving.

Writer Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk (twitter @ArtsWriter) has an article over on mlive:

MLive.com - Too early for Christmas music on the radio? Readers, listeners sound off

Some comments from a person featured in the article:

"This ruins the joy Christmas brings," ... "By the time Christmas is here the wonder and joy of the sounds of the season has already lost its magic and it becomes annoying. I will NOT be listening to these stations so I can enjoy the season when it gets here."

Writer Cort Gatliffin has an article over at yellowhammernews.com:

yellowhammernews.com - (Vote) When is it acceptable to start listening to Christmas music?


Some of his readers sounded off with comments like these:

Christmas music simply can’t be appreciated appropriately before Thanksgiving,” ... “That’s just the way it is.

The poll on the article asks: When is it acceptable to start listening to Christmas music?
Results:

November 1 - 30.1%
December 1 - 10.0%
After Thanksgiving - 52.1%
All year - 7.8%

There's nothing wrong with Christmas music really.
It's wonderful music, and honestly if you love it and want to listen to it all year go for it.

But when everyone suddenly kicks off the Christmas music right after Halloween, the message is that we'd rather skip the season of Giving Thanks.

Respect The Turkey!

Give Thanks... for veggies!

These turkeys sure know what to really be thankful for this season!

Stores Closed on Thanksgiving

Quite a few stores are now joining the march to stay closed on Thanksgiving!

Thanks to some successful facebook campaigns like Say No To Shopping on Thanksgiving and the popular pledge badge that's been going around, stores are starting to listen!



Great to see such a community supporting the retail workers and helping them get a well deserved day off.

Over at Forbes they are compiling a running list:

Forbes: Costco, Publix Lead Charge As Stores Refuse To Open On Thanksgiving Day

Here's the list from the Forbes article. Respect the Turkey! :)

American Girl
Barnes & Noble
Bed
Bath and Beyond
BJ’s Wholesale Club
Burlington Coat Factory
Costco
Crate & Barrel
Dillard’s
DSW
GameStop
Hobby Lobby
HomeGoods
Home Depot
Jo Ann Fabrics
Lowe’s
Marshalls
Nordstrom
Petco
Pier 1
Publix
RadioShack
Sam’s Club
Sur La Table
Talbots
T.J. Maxx

Happy Thanksgiving Canada!

Monday, October 13th is Canada's day of Thanksgiving.

Their Thanksgiving is very similar to ours, with big dinners and watching football on TV, just any day through the weekend.

It falls on the same day as Columbus Day in the US.

Writer Zoe Mintz of the IBTimes has a great write up of some of the differences between America's and Canada's Turkey Day.



Our favorite part?

However, unlike American Thanksgiving, Canadians don't typically see the holiday as a kickoff event to Christmas shopping.

Read the full article over at ibtimes: Canadian Thanksgiving 2014: 3 Ways The Holiday Differs From America’s Turkey Day.

You can find Zoe Mintz on Twitter at @ZoeMintz and as always we're at @RespectTurkey

Thanskgiving Movies

This upcoming Thanksgiving you'll probably see mostly Christmas movies on the TV already, but there are some good movies out there about Thanksgiving time!

John R. Kennedy over at Global News writes:

To get into the spirit of the holiday, we’ve cooked up a list of 10 movies and TV specials set during Thanksgiving. They’re not all great movies (you mean some are turkeys? – ed.) but they’re bound to resonate with anyone spending time with relatives and pumpkin pies.

Our favorites: Free Birds, and of course Charlie Brown's Thanskgiving.


Head over to globalnews.ca to read the full story: 10 movies and specials to watch this Thanksgiving

You can follow John R. Kennedy on twitter at @GlobalJRK and as always we're at @RespectTurkey.

Christmas coming earlier: More retailers now count season's length in months, not weeks

Over at the Omaha World Herald, writer Barbara Soderlin has yet another article in the news about stores opening earlier this year.


(from: omaha.com - Christmas coming earlier: More retailers now count season's length in months, not weeks

Probably the best line from the article:

What’s creepier than all the Halloween masks on display?

The “Christmas creep” shoppers will see as holiday promotions and sales arrive in stores even earlier this year.

(from: omaha.com - Christmas coming earlier: More retailers now count season's length in months, not weeks

Read the rest of Barbara's article here.

You can follow her on Twitter at @barbarasoderlin, and as always we're at @respectturkey.

WSJ: Expect Retailers to Open Even Earlier This Thanksgiving

Andria Cheng at the Wall Street Journal wrote up an article about how retailers are expected to be open for a full day of shopping on Thanksgiving Day.

While retailers aren’t expected to announce any special Thanksgiving hours until the second half of October or into November, “it’s inevitable to see them open all day or even earlier than last year,” Joel Bines, managing director and co-leader of consulting firm AlixPartners’ retail practice, said in an interview.

(from: WSJ: Expect Retailers to Open Even Earlier This Thanksgiving)

Even though retailers are planning to make people work on Thanksgiving Day, it may not even do much to boost their sales.

To be sure, opening early on Thanksgiving may do little more than ruin employees’ turkey feasts.

Last year, retailers from Wal-Mart and Best Buy to Macy's and J.C. Penney opened stores or kicked off sales events earlier on Thanksgiving. Still, record Black Friday weekend sales didn’t salvage what turned out to be a disappointing holiday season.

“With the soft sales outlook, we do anticipate a few earlier openings” on Thanksgiving, or even a few more all-day openings, Mr. Johnson of Customer Growth said. “However, there is a law of diminishing returns,” and stores risk cannibalizing their December sales.

(from: WSJ: Expect Retailers to Open Even Earlier This Thanksgiving)

So even though some retailers will admit that shopping on Thanksgiving doesn't help their sales, and shopping too early can actually harm their December sales, they're all going to go through with it.

You can follow Andria Cheng on Twitter at: @andriacheng and as always we're at @respectturkey