Please, Don’t Ignore November
November is the best time of the year to start busting out cute sweaters and scarves. It’s also the perfect excuse to try a pumpkin spiced latte from Starbucks for the first time (still on my bucket list). My personal favorite thing to do during November is hearing the crunch of the warm colored leaves under my every step. In addition, I love waiting for Black Friday when all the sales go up online. I also have many personal ties with November: after 17 years, the 21st of November is finally the day before Thanksgiving again — my birthday. My older brother was born on the 16th as well. So, November contains a multitude of events for my family.
Apart from my personal ties with the month, November only has one main event: Thanksgiving. However, there’s no pre-holiday buildup. Halloween and Christmas have songs like the “monster mash” and “we wish you a Merry Christmas.” I understand that Thanksgiving has no songs about it, but for the love and respect of the holidays, don’t sing Christmas songs before Thanksgiving evens starts (at least in front of me).
Yes, Thanksgiving doesn’t have haunted houses or Christmas trees. When people think of the purpose of Thanksgiving, it’s family reunions. Everyone’s opinions and experiences are different. It can be good, bad, or ugly. But, Thanksgiving prides itself in its own name: it’s a time to be thankful. You say your thanks for how fortunate you are. The people you love and love you back surround you. I know I sound cheesy, but people don’t often sit down and genuinely take the time to be grateful. I can only name a few: Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and the almost forgotten sibling’s/children’s Day. The number of people celebrating those holidays doesn’t hold it to the same magnitude as Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving can provide fun memories. I personally joke about giving the turkey a better massage than all the massages I’ve ever received. One year, I ran around the kitchen in circles juggling a boiled potato because it was too hot for me. I tossed it to my brother who continued to juggle it until my mother grabbed the steaming plant and peeled it with ease. Another year, everyone at the party was too full to touch the pumpkin pies so my brothers and I ate all of them without even bothering to cut them into slices. Hate me all you want, but I dove straight into the middle of the pie.
So please, don’t forget November. It’s my favorite month containing my favorite holiday. It deserves at least the same amount of respect as October and December. I’d love to see how many people follow the “No Shave November” mantra or some of the other ones. I want to see random turkeys pasted on the walls or stories of the infamous Tofurkey. I want to see my feeds on social media flooded with pictures of people saying thanks. November doesn’t need to be celebrated extravagantly, I just want it to be noticed and appreciated.
My riding instructor always makes us do "no-stirrup November" which is simultaneously the most nightmarish, challenging, and insanely fun thing ever invented.
ReplyDeleteThanksgiving's my favorite holiday too. I feel like it's what Christmas is supposed to be: a time to reconnect with your family and be grateful, without all of the capitalist consumer-mania thrown in.
My family doesn't celebrate thanksgiving, or at least not the American version of it. I assume that the American version of thanksgiving is a family reunion that celebrates a bountiful harvest (?). Most of my family is in China, so having a family reunion is sort of difficult. We do however celebrate the mooncake festival, which I feel is very similar to thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteNovember always seems to get left behind! It's always Halloween and then straight to Christmas right away. Like hello what ever happened to Thanksgiving?? I LOVE Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving break is always something that I look forward to during the school year because I feel like a lot of things happen, like the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. Thanksgiving really is the best.
ReplyDeleteThis is so wholesome, I love it!! As someone who did not grow up with Thanksgiving (or Halloween for that matter) I don't have the same connection to it as you do, but I do agree with you. I agree that Christmas should not be mentioned throughout the month of November, for the love of all the gods. Also, the idea of giving thanks is always treated like a cheesy thing, but I do think it's important to realize how much we have in life.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree, November is criminally underrated. It's peak fall- no whacky weather patterns like October, no freezing cold days like December. And you're right that Thanksgiving, while maybe not as big a name as Halloween or Christmas, is nevertheless a great time and worthy of respect.
ReplyDeleteCHRISTMAS MUSIC SHOULD BE PLAYED AFTER BLACK FRIDAY!
ReplyDeleteI will never appreciate hearing Mariah Carey on November 11th. Never. I am not a winter fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I do appreciate that winter offers three MAJOR holidays (that you spend the whole year looking forward to) and they each get their own month. The other seasons are quaking. I really loathe to see November buried by discount candy and bright lights, and hope that we won't lose the GRATE(full()est month to the Spirit of Christmas. Great post, Tina!
I agree with you there. If you ask me, Thanksgiving is the best holiday ever! My mom makes the best ham ever, glazed with pineapples and some other stuff that I can't think of right now, but I still love it. My family isn't big on turkey though. Another great thing about November is that my best friend was born right after it, my older brother! He is going to be 20 this November 28th. It is such a good month.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to see where your passion for November comes from. As for me I'm still going to root for the cold clutches of winter to come as fast as possible. The crunch of snow underfoot and sitting inside under a blanket, tea, book and fireplace is always the best parts of winter weather. I think November has always been that kind of weird month since it both seems so close and so far from Winter break, so people usually just indulge themselves in Christmas music so that they can get to that long vacation they've been waiting for since summer break.
ReplyDeleteWhile November is no worse than any other month, I find it difficult to appreciate any month over another, since I can never remember the date and am only ever partly sure of what month it is anyway. The holiday of Thanksgiving, however, I agree is far underappreciated as holidays go. What I love about it is that it is one of the few large-scale holidays which is not based around a religious event. This means that anyone and everyone can celebrate it. Even so, it still makes people think in the best ways. Perhaps a month such as November is difficult to be thankful for, but that doesn't diminish the significance of what occurs within it.
ReplyDeleteFall/winter is my favorite time of the year. I love both autumn leaves and winter snow (I'm applying only to colleges in cold places to maximize the amount of time I get my favorite seasons) and this time of year just has a cozy feeling. Personally, I'm more of a December person because, like you talked about, I'm biased by my Dec 29th birthday. But I definitely agree that Thanksgiving is an underrated holiday and should get more hype (and more music).
ReplyDeleteThis is a really wholesome post, I love it. I saw this meme that said November is basically the Thursday of the year, which oddly seemed perfectly fitting to me. November is the month right before the end of the year, and everyone is just anxious to get it all over with: go on winter break, end the semester, all that good stuff. I think you're right that all the good parts of November are often overlooked in excitement for the festive end of the year.
ReplyDelete