Driving down the road, all I see are Christmas lights; walking into stores, all I see are Christmas setups. This has been the case since the beginning of the month. What blows my mind though is that people constantly overlook what is easily my favorite holiday.

Once Halloween festivities are finished, everyone always jumps straight into the Christmas spirit. What about Thanksgiving? That holiday where it is totally acceptable to eat a ridiculous amount of food and watch football all day. How can you forget that?

Putting food and football together makes the ultimate holiday in my opinion (which, on another note, is why my petition to make Super Bowl Sunday an official holiday is still ongoing). The only thing I wish is that more teams would get a chance to play on Thanksgiving.

The Cowboys and Lions have the tradition of playing every year on the holiday, but how many times can a person watch those teams lose? Thanksgiving games should be prime matchups. This is the first year that I can remember where that is actually the case. The lowliest game of the day comes with the Lions (as always, really), and afterwards the Cowboys take on the Eagles in a daytime divisional matchup, while Seattle and San Francisco play under the lights. Both games have huge playoff positions at stake, so it should be an exciting day for the sport.

And if you aren’t all about football on Thanksgiving, that’s okay too. Enjoy the company of family and stuff your face. Nobody is going to judge you.

This brings me to the next best part of Thanksgiving, food. I love food, and I am thankful for food; which is why I love Thanksgiving so much. I mean, yeah, I’m thankful for other stuff too, but that’s not important right now, so let’s get down to it and talk about that glorious meal the pilgrims (or the aliens if you’re a South Park fan) brought us all those years ago.

Turkey, mashed potatoes, homemade gravy, stuffing; it’s all good. And you can’t forget about the desserts! Come on now, when else is it perfectly okay to eat 3 different types of pie (personally I think that’s okay anytime, but “society” would disagree with that)? If you don’t go into Thanksgiving with a mindset that you are going to gain a little bit of wait, you’re insane.

And all of that brings me to my main point. It really grinds my gears when people seemingly skip Thanksgiving for Christmas. Believe me, I’m no Grinch when it comes to Christmas, but my Christmas spirit starts on Black Friday, not the beginning of November.

So let me be one of the first to say, “The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear,” but at least wait until after Thanksgiving. The same goes with putting up decorations. It’s totally cool to do… after Thanksgiving.

Enjoy the current holiday with your family and friends, and don’t let it go by too fast! Happy Thanksgiving!