Thanksgiving or Christmas??
I was asked recently which I prefer Thanksgiving or Christmas. My immediate thought was CHRISTMAS!!!! You get gifts and a couple days off, everybody gets together from out of town. I get to see relatives I haven't seen in a year and it's just a big sense of family. Well at least with our family that is how Christmas is.
Then I stopped and thought about it a little bit closer. Thanksgiving is a freebie Holiday. There are no expectations. You don't have to find a ultra cool gift for that 8 year old you only see once a year. You don't have to deplete your bank account for the gift that mom and dad only put out if they think you will see it.(They already have just about anything they want.) Around here we get Thursday and Friday off, so that makes for a great 4 day weekend. Top it off with FOOTBALL!!!!
The only drain on me for Thanksgiving is possibly my house is a little messy and I over eat (like that doesn't happen on every thursday). I get to go play football in the front yard with my cousins and the neighborhood kids, and we get to relive a little slice of our youth. Yeah you know back when knees worked and backs didn't hurt and don't forget that nagging pain in the shoulder. Of course the downside to all of that is Friday, but hey it's a day off so I can recover on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday if need be.
On Christmas I have to spend more money in one month than I make in 5. I am generally wrong on at least half of the presents I buy for family and friends (guess I'm not a good judge of what other people like). I still have to clean up the house after it's all over. The difference being on Chrstmas I have to clean up gift wrap as well as dishes.
So I changed my answer and told my friend that I prefer Thanksgiving over Christmas. I then proceeded to explain the pros and cons as I saw them. It took my buddy about 5 minutes to think through everything I said before his response.
He told me that I had it all wrong. Christmas isn't about presents. He explained to me what Christmas is truly about (like I didn't grow up in a Catholic house). I let him ramble on for about 20 minutes before I stopped him and asked how much money he spent on Christmas even though it's not about the presents. He has 3 children ranging in age from 4-10. Well he wouldn't tell me, but told me that it was over $1000. WOW!!!! Little kid presents shouldn't cost that much first of all.
So we argued the merits of his statements about Christmas compared to mine. The argument got a bit heated and I guess we raised our voices a little bit more than we realized. A gal (sorry I still use the word gal) who works at the office popped her head in the door and told us we were foolish. We were told that regardless of all of that Memorial Day was the best holiday. She then explained the whole 3 day weekend thing, how everything is on sale. You have good weather (here it's good weather in may) to go and do something as a family or with that special someone. Pretty soon, there was another head popped in the door, offering another Holiday. The argument faded into a laughing debate about Holidays and Birthdays and if your birthday should be considered a Holiday. We finally got the withering stare from the boss which was a signal to get our keesters back to the daily grind of well whatever we were doing at the time.
So now I'm faced with a dilema. Which is the best Holiday? So offer up your choice and give me a reason why you think it ranks as the best. I need some heavy ammunition for Monday when I get back that way and can finish this debate.
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