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Most of us think we know a lot about Thanksgiving, but most of us don't know nuthin'.
The pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians who shared the first feast didn't eat pie, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes or white potatoes.
They lacked such basic necessities as mini marshmallows and french-fried onion debris.
They probably didn't eat turkey either, although they ate other birds.
It is my theory that turkey was made the official protein source of Thanksgiving because it was passed over for national bird. It was just a sop to turkey interests.
At any rate, don't feel pressured to eat turkey. And don't feel pressured to celebrate Christmas too early.
You get thrown a lot of Christmas entertainment by radio stations and TV channels on Thanksgiving, as if you can't wait a day to start celebrating that December holiday.
I have never understood why Thanksgiving gets short shrift in our pop culture.
Kids get to sit on Santa's lap at the mall in December and the Easter Bunny's lap in March. But where's the guy in the turkey costume in November? I don't know about you, but if there was a giant turkey that could actually form a lap, I would sit on it. I wouldn't be able to stop myself.
Anyway, before you start gorging on Christmas entertainment, maybe you should try to seek out some Thanksgiving-themed fare.
It's out there; it's just not as ubiquitous (and therefore not as maddening).
Here are suggestions.
My favorite Thanksgiving movie is "Home for the Holidays." While it is easy to find movies set at Christmas in which families never fight, movies about Thanksgiving gatherings are usually full of strife. The key is to find a movie that leavens the strife with genuine warmth. "Home for the Holidays" fits the bill. The scene where Holly Hunter has a heart-to-heart with her dad (Charles Durning) while he struggles with an ill-fitting bathrobe always chokes me up. But that's because I've had a lot of heart-to-hearts in my life with a stout dad in an ill-fitting bathrobe. It might not resonate with you quite as well.
John Hughes' "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" is another great Thanksgiving film, and I forgot how poignant it was until I read this speech from the sweet but overbearing Del, played by the late John Candy: "You wanna hurt me? Go right ahead, if it makes you feel any better. I'm an easy target. Yeah, you're right, I talk too much. I also listen too much. I could be a cold-hearted cynic like you … but I don't like to hurt people's feelings. Well, you think what you want about me; I'm not changing. I like … I like me. My wife likes me. My customers like me. 'Cause I'm the real article. What you see is what you get."
2009 was the year we started to use the phrase "the late John Hughes," so it's as good a time as any to revisit this movie. The multigenerational and multicultural "What's Cooking" comes highly recommended, although I have not seen it.
Rankin-Bass, the company that produced all the stop-motion Christmas specials, apparently made a Thanksgiving-themed special in 1968 that hasn't been aired since, as far as I can tell.
It's called "Mouse on the Mayflower" and it allegedly shows a mouse-eye view of the pilgrims' progress.
Something tells me the special does not touch upon ship-borne rodent plagues.
"Mouse on the Mayflower" is ecstatically reviewed on Amazon.com and may be worth buying on VHS if your kids won't be too embarrassed about watching something in that format.
Thanksgiving is a time for giving thanks, of course, but it is also a time for overindulging in overindulgence.
In that spirit, perhaps you should rent Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life," in which a man experiences the consequences of having one bite too many.
There aren't too many Thanksgiving carols, per se, although there's plenty of religious music about giving thanks.
One Thanksgiving standard can be found in the movie "Holiday Inn," which is generally thought of as a Christmas film.
Bing Crosby sings a jaunty Irving Berlin tune called "I've Got Plenty To Be Thankful For."
In "Holiday Inn," Crosby's rendition of the song is preceded by a bit of animation designed, I believe, to lampoon FDR's decision in 1939 to move Thanksgiving from Nov. 30 to Nov. 23 to give retailers another week to sell their Christmas wares. The decision was so controversial that Thanksgiving was celebrated on both dates that year.
The late "Peanuts" composer Vince Guaraldi wrote "Thanksgiving Theme" for "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving," and you can see and hear many amateur pianists attempt to do justice to it on YouTube.
The bittersweet composition certainly sums up autumn in general, if not Thanksgiving in particular.
"Thanksgiving Song" is included on the recently released compilation "The Definitive Vince Guaraldi."
Some rock fans like to play Led Zeppelin's "Thank You" on Thanksgiving. The song is certainly among the band's more bucolic and hippy-dippy tunes.
The full 18-minute version of Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" often gets an airing on Thanksgiving.
The song is based on a true Thanksgiving story involving Guthrie and was meant to satirize the Vietnam War draft. Playing "Alice's Restaurant" is the way Thanksgiving is celebrated in communities that are somewhat more left-wing than ours.
Finally, we have Alanis Morissette's "Thank You."
One great way to break the ice at tense gatherings is to have everyone try to sing this torturous tune.
Nothing brings a family together like making fun of Morissette.
