Anyone else about done with Christmas carols? It is a shame, really; some of them are so beautiful, or they would be if we didn't have to hear them every time we walked into a store, a lobby, an elevator.
Thanksgiving Day songs have never gotten the same over-exposure respect as their December brethren. Perhaps because turkeys don't turn that big a profit.
There is no Black Tuesday filled with crowds of people waiting outside of Albertson's or Jewel's in the pre-dawn darkness for hours, hoping to snag one of the five-pound bags of potatoes at half price (first 35 shoppers). Or battling it out over the last can of jellied cranberry sauce and then racing their shopping carts to the fastest moving checkout line only to learn it lost its credit card connection and has ground to a halt. But if there were such a Black Tuesday, that is the point at which the PA system would sputter to life to enchant all with this rendition of the Thanksgiving Song:
When I was a child, that was the only Thanksgiving song we knew. There may have been others, but this was the one we sang on the way to our actual grandmother's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Unfortunately, we only knew the first refrain and in order to keep the car filled with holiday spirits for the entire trip, we just repeated those words. Again and again and again. That may be why my parents never lived more than a fifteen minute drive from Dad's folks.
Below the fold are more Thanksgiving offerings to get you in the proper frame of mind for your Thanksgiving dinner.
And what would your Thanksgiving dinner be without dancing turkeys?
I have managed to miss seeing, or even hearing about, an animated sitcom called
Bob's Burgers that Fox began broadcasting in 2011. It centers around a family that runs, surprise, a hamburger restaurant. Originally written off by critics as vulgar, it has apparently improved over the last few years. Not being in a position to judge, I was free to enjoy this song, performed by The National, from the show. It has just the right balance of the banal and the bizarre. Hope you enjoy it.
This parody of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" is—well, watch it for yourself:
Long after I stopped going to Grandmother's house for Thanksgiving dinner, I started making it, first for my husband as we traveled around the country, then for our park ranger friends at Joshua Tree National Park (feed a ranger and he will follow you home. Every time. Guaranteed).
Once we settled down in a house, our Thanksgiving dinners were dedicated to the family that we had created for ourselves—our close friends and any strays that happened along. My best friend and I would alternate the cooking duties every year. And every year Thanksgiving went something like this:
I hope that however you are celebrating this year you find some Thanksgiving music to commemorate the real reason we mark this holiday: to get stuffed.