Tom Turkey

tomturkey

Ah, the holidays. A time for giving. A time for friends and family. A time for jovial laughter and merry nights. As I have grown up in life, I have noticed something. We, as a society, through the hustle and bustle of the commercial world that we live in, tend to forget something. This something is poor, innocent Tom Turkey. Between Halloween and Christmas he just gets forgotten, and it just isn’t fair!

“How could this happen?” one might ask. Well, it’s simple. Around the beginning of October we start getting excited for Halloween. We see the little displays being put up in the supermarket, decorations go up on houses, and candy goes on sale. It’s the beginning of “The Holidays.” Before we know it, Halloween comes and goes. The day after Halloween, you go to the store and what do you see? You see Santa Claus! Red, green, and white! Banners in parking lots! Special packaging on products in an attempt to capitalize early on the Christmas holiday! Thanksgiving? What Thanksgiving? I don’t see any Thanksgiving! It must not exist, right?

Out of all the Holidays, Thanksgiving is one of the last that we should forget. Why is Thanksgiving so important? Well, there are all of those sappy answers like thanks, self reflection, and putting differences aside. However, this is about more than a harmonious day celebrating pilgrims and Indians. It is about on thing – the turkey, the mascot of Thanksgiving. Poor Tom is overlooked, where Santa Claus is the Tom Hanks of the Holiday World. Even the Easter Bunny is more popular than Tom. But both Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are sellouts. They don’t back up their holiday like Tom does. Tom believes in his holiday so much that he dies for it. That’s right, dies! He’s sacrificed! Decapitated! Just so that you can enjoy your holiday. Is that commitment, or what? I don’t see Sant up at the guillotine!

Santa steals November right out from under Tom’s nose, and who gets the fame and glory? Santa. He gets it from being some overweight, poorly groomed old guy, who works elves in sweat shops all year while he sits on his duff passing Judgment on poor children that don’t know any better. He works only one night during the whole year, in which he even has the luxury of using magic or something, and he breaks into every home on the planet. But Tom, he’s not like that. Not at all. He doesn’t have any cool magical powers to make life easy. He works all year to make himself just perfect for your table. He doesn’t have a pack of elves to help him either. No, he does it alone… a silent and thankless job.

One can’t help but notice the irony. That fact that he gives us a wonderful holiday to be thankful, only to get nothing in return. Not even a thank you. What comes from this selfless act? A loss of memory. We take the cooked, stuffed, juicy turkey sitting on our table for granted. That just isn’t right. Tom deserves more. A little recognition. A thank you. Maybe even the month of November back. Is that too much to ask? No, it’s not too much for me. I will ignore the Christmas propaganda for a month. I will savor the turkey on my table. I will enjoy my Thanksgiving break. I will properly celebrate Thanksgiving. And above all, I will say thank you.

Thanks, Tom.

Scott Jensen

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I'm Scott, and I love writing things like this. But I spend most of my time working as a designer.
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