Thanksgiving – The “Lost” Holiday

Greetings, readers! Do you love holidays? I do. But what kind of a holiday reveler are you? Are you listening to Christmas Carols the day after Halloween, and already ”decking the halls” , or do you still have carved jack-o-lanterns on your porch, growing “scarier” each day with rot? 

I personally really do adore holidays – be it Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, or July 4th. My grandma always said “Holidays make life special”, and they do – a chance to spend special times with friends and family, make different foods, and change the scenery, so to speak, with festive decor. However, currently I am feeling a sort of “Holiday Purgatory” this month – fall decor seems a wee bit “tired” now that Halloween is over, but it’s not quite time to haul out the holly! What ever happened to decorating for Thanksgiving?

One of my favorite things about New England is that everyone decorates for the different seasons. As soon as there is a fall nip in the air, there are pumpkins and corn stalks decorating every porch and corner. 

I also LOVE Christmas, with its lights and warmth and cheer, and the fact that I can completely cover everything with glitter and nobody bats an eyelash. 

But when do you start decorating for “the holidays”, such as Christmas? 

To me, Christmas is the start of winter, and Thanksgiving is still, technically, autumn and harvest time.

When it comes to decorating for any holiday, my favorite finds are vintage and thrift-shop finds from yesteryear. Once the ghosties and witches are packed away after Halloween, I pull out Thanksgiving-themed pieces, such as my vintage Gurley candles. Only a few inches tall, some were found thrifting, and some were a gift from a friend and fellow vintage-enthusiast.

Made from the 50’s through the 70’s, the figurine-shaped candles were once sold at five-and-dime stores. My small collection of Thanksgiving candles feature turkeys and pilgrims. 

In the mid-nineties, my mom sent me a red glass, covered turkey candy dish from Williams and Sonoma. It graces the dining room at the start of fall, and with its deep ruby color, stays out on display through to New Year’s.

In the kitchen, the hoosier has a tray decorated in leaves, and a ceramic turkey that someone probably painted in a 1970’s ceramic class (I made one just like it as a child). Both were inexpensive Goodwill finds, relics of the “forgotten holiday”, that hardly anyone decorates for anymore. 

Here and there are vintage early-1900’s Thanksgiving postcards, from a time when mailing cards and letters was the way to let friends know you were thinking of them.  

I also think I am not “feeling” the Christmas decorating bug because this fall has been so warm. We’ve been melting on walks with 80+ degree heat, something unheard of for this time of year in New England. Nothing felt weirder than when I went to Hobby Lobby with a friend, the store all glittery and covered in “Christmas” like a giant, red-and-green-frosted sugar cookie, Christmas carols blasting over the speakers, and my friend and I dressed in shorts and sandals, the day after Halloween.

It’s a tradition on Thanksgiving Thursday to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade on television, something I have done with family since I was a child.

The “official” start to the Christmas holidays for me has always been when the parade is about to end, and Santa Claus makes his appearance. That moment has me imagining reindeer, behind gates like racehorses, chomping at the bit for Christmas to start. That’s when it feels really exciting to decorate for the holidays! Full speed ahead!

I think Thanksgiving is even more lost, an invisible holiday in modern times, because of hectic work schedules, fast-paced modern life, and Black Friday. Honestly, to me there is no deal so special that I would go out shopping in the crowds and craziness on Black Friday, preferring instead to stay home and eat leftovers, and decorate the house fully for Christmas. If the Black Friday shopping rush is your thing, I say go for it! But for stores that open ON Thanksgiving Day, instead of waiting until our bellies are full and letting employees spend time with their families, I say shame on them! Stop pushing our festivities into one big blur.

Because Thanksgiving also falls so late on the calendar this year, many people are decorating for the holidays earlier than usual. I’ve seen full-blown lights and trees already twinkling away. I think this year, I will start to bring out Christmas gradually – bottle brush trees first, small pieces here and there. I just don’t feel like rushing things. 

So, since I am not quite ready yet for reindeer and Santa, I will keep enjoying my pumpkins and turkeys for just a wee bit longer. 

Tell me, do you decorate for Thanksgiving, or go straight to the holidays? When do you put out your decorations? What are your family traditions? Share with me in the comments, or just let me know you stopped by!