Put down the eggnog, people.
Back away from the tinsel. And, at least until Friday, refrain from bargain-hunting.
Take a deep breath and a bite of turkey, and remember which holiday we’re observing today.
In short, Respect the Bird.
That is the message of Doug Matthews, who almost singlehandedly launched a campaign to exalt this turkey-centered day and put off, if just for a while, the Christmas holiday frenzy.
Matthews lives in Mendham, N.J., now, but he once called Denver home, and, speaking of birds, had a job here ice skating in a black-crow suit.
Respect the Bird started last year, when Matthews posted a rant on .
“The calendar seems to be going by at a frightening pace, and holidays are getting blended into each other like ingredients in a smoothie,” he railed. “Thanksgiving is a great holiday. It’s a truly American holiday. It combines food, football and drunken relatives we actually look forward to seeing once a year.”
Matthews’ words struck a chord with the Allrecipes foodie community, said spokeswoman Stephanie Robinett.
“He got hundreds and hundreds of comments,” and the post was the most popular thing on the site even after Thanksgiving, she said.
It’s not hard to see what he’s complaining about.
Lights up after Halloween
Where it was once gauche to put up outside Christmas lights before Thanksgiving, more and more homeowners now seem to do it the day after Halloween. At least one local company discounts holiday-light-display installations for customers who get the work done before Nov. 25.
Even the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade finale is the arrival of Santa Claus. Supposedly, he just popped in from the North Pole, but these days, chances are the Jolly Old Elf already has spent weeks in lower-latitude locations.
In trying to fend off the encroaching Christmas, Thanksgiving has a lot to overcome.
“There’s nothing to sell besides food,” Robinett said.
There are no Thanksgiving carols. There is no oddly dressed guy sitting on a throne at the mall asking you what you want and promising to magically deliver it by Thanksgiving morning.
But to Matthews, that’s part of the charm of the fourth Thursday in November. It’s simple, he says. It’s about family and good food.
So, forging bravely ahead and ignoring the obvious potential for sickos to turn the whole thing into a paean to an obscene gesture, the Respect the Bird campaign has — pardon the expression — snowballed. More than 3,900 had taken the Respect the Bird pledge as of Wednesday. And its Facebook page had gained a thousand more Facebook followers, many of whom express Norman Rockwellian sentiments about holidays and family on the RTB wall.
Christine Janowiak-Miller of Denver took the opportunity of “liking” RTB on Facebook to express solidarity with some Target employees. “Let sales people spend time with their families,” she wrote.
Respect the Bird has gotten tangled with a Nebraska Target employee who started a petition to stop the retail giant from forcing employees to work Thanksgiving.
Just Say No-rdstrom
While a chorus of Scrooges suggest employee Anthony Hardwick quit whining and give thanks for his job, the petition had netted nearly 200,000 signatures by Wednesday.
While Target isn’t the only jumping-the-gun culprit, only one major retailer has made a name for resisting the Black Friday early-start tidal wave.
That retailer, Nordstrom, has become a darling of the social-media pro-Thanksgiving community.
“As a company, we believe in celebrating one holiday at a time,” said spokesman John Bailey. And the response has been very positive, he said.
All the attention surprises Matthews, who may well be thankful that he no longer has to put on a black-crow suit and skate around the Denver Coliseum, as he did as the mascot for the short-lived Colorado Rangers hockey team.
Whatever momentum the savor-Thanksgiving movement has, it clearly hasn’t reached everybody.
For some, like Patrick Vigil, not even the happy blending of corn pudding, cranberries and Dallas Cowboys outweighs Black Friday savings.
9News crews found Vigil on Tuesday — yes, Tuesday — camped out in front of the Lakewood Best Buy store.
“I’m waiting for the 42-inch Sharp TV,” on sale for $500 off its usual price, he told the TV reporters, who calculated that by the time Best Buy opens at midnight, Vigil will have spent 63.5 hours on the cold concrete.
“Anything to save a dime,” he said.
That doesn’t surprise Matthews.
“I definitely think this is an uphill battle,” he said. “At the same time, I know a lot of people who feel the same way we do.”
His 6-year-old son, for instance. “When he sees Christmas lights now, he rolls down the window and yells, ‘Respect the bird!’ “
Karen Auge: 303-954-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com
