Nov 6, 2023 3 min read

On November 1, several of my Facebook friends jumped the turkey by posting “Happy Thanksgiving” memes. Now, I don’t particularly care if people rush the Christmas season. After roughly 50 years of seeing stores put up Halloween displays in August, I’ve learned to simply ignore the appearance of twinkling artificial evergreen trees and life-like Santas in a variety of ethnicities sometime in September. But when people start pushing Pilgrims before the Halloween loot has been separated by category and hidden from children, well … I am offended.

Personally, I don’t want to have a happy Thanksgiving. Instead, I want to dwell on the hardships faced in 1621 by the “pilgrims” in Plymouth, Mass. Without cable TV, these religious refugees had to go without watching the annual Detroit Lions-Green Bay Packers football matchup. Even worse, with most restaurants closed and DoorDash drivers off for the holiday, these hearty souls – who one year previously had endured a 3-month ocean voyage from England on a cruise ship without cellphone chargers – were reduced to cooking their own food. Try slaving over a hot campfire all day only to hear complaints from people who don’t like sweet potatoes. The horror!

Fun fact: Just as tempers began to flare, a passing Native American drove her cart into a ditch, disgorging roughly 28 pumpkin pies, which the colonists hurriedly snatched and took back to their Spartan accommodations. After prayers for a cart filled with whipped topping went unanswered, however, many colonists converted to Druidism before November 1622.

Happy Thanksgiving? Bah, humbug! Forget giving thanks. Forget turkey. Grab a box of Pop-Tarts and a flagon of mead. Satiate yourselves. Then move right into Sparkle Season. Yes, I’m bringing it back!

Longtime residents of the Greater Pittsburgh area likely will remember that from 1994 to 1997, the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership coined the term “Sparkle Season” as a marketing tool to bring more holiday shoppers to Downtown. Some people loved the term, but others – particularly Christians – rebelled in what might have been the first volley in what I call the Skirmish against the War on Christmas. In 1998, the PDP ditched the term and began saying “Downtown Pittsburgh Sparkles” during the holiday shopping season. Still, the kringle tingle lingered, like frost on the pumpkin or that stubborn ice on your windshield when you’re running late for work in the morning.

As late as 2014, the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, went so far as to accuse Pittsburgh of renaming Christmas Day “Sparkle Day,” part of, he claimed, “efforts across the country to take Jesus out of the celebration of his own birthday.” Of course, this wasn’t true. It was, instead, a blatant attempt to avoid offending and provoking anyone. Imagine … asking followers of Jesus to be inclusive! The horror!

But I’m an inclusive kinda guy. So, this year, let your festive freak flag fly. Wish me a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hannukah, a Krazee Kwanzaa, a Cool Yule, a Fantastic Festivus; a Swingin’ Solstice, a Spunky Sparkle Season. I won’t be offended.

Just say, “Noel!”