The Thanksgiving Thumper

And then she listened and realized that over the public address system, they were playing Christmas tunes. She wanted to run out of the store right that minute but she needed some hardware items to help Carol button up the house for the cold weather ahead.

So she hopped through, got what she needed, glanced briefly at the enormous display of Christmas trees and lights, right next to the 70% off Halloween decorations, and continued to hop her way through the checkout lines and out the door.

“Whatever happened to Thanksgiving?” she asked herself. 

Yes, there once was a time when no one even suggested decorating for Christmas until the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers had been eaten or tossed. Thumper longed for those days but decided it was a losing battle and perhaps she should just call her good buddies the Halloween Hare and the Christmas Cottontail to see what they thought she could do to keep her own holiday—Thanksgiving—from being run over by other holidays.

So that’s just what she did.

Fortunately, she caught the Halloween Hare, normally a somewhat grumpy ol’ rabbit, on a good day.  He was still quite fat and lethargic from all the candy he’d been eating since his Halloween night raids. It had been a good year for him because there weren’t that many kids out trick-or-treating plus some people left bowls of candy out because of the… well… shall we say… circumstances of the year… So Hare had gotten more candy than usual.

After hearing Thumper’s complaints about how people were skipping over Thanksgiving, Hare, who even though he was in a good mood was still a bit grumpy, told her to just be thankful she didn’t have to hop from garden to garden every single year on Halloween. It was exhausting!  Instead, she should be grateful that for her holiday, she just had to eat. And maybe cook.

Thumper thought about that and decided Hare was right. She was thankful she didn’t have to do all that traveling on her holiday.

Feeling a little better, she went up to the North Pole to talk to the Christmas Cottontail about the possibility of him helping to hold back holiday decorating until at least after Thanksgiving. Since it was November, she thought Cottontail would have time to visit with her and might offer her some green bean cookies and clover tea.

Thumper was wrong. Cottontail was busy scurrying around, shouting orders to all the chipmunks, bees, and underbunnies who were helping sort seeds and bulbs for his big Christmas Eve journey with Santa Claus to every gardeners’ house.  His list was twice as long as normal since so many people had taken up gardening this past year and become gardeners. Now they, too, expected the Christmas Cottontail to visit their gardens on Christmas Eve.

Cottontail said he’d be happy to provide some advice if Thumper would pitch in and help a little. So Thumper grabbed some seeds to sort and listened as Cottontail told her to be thankful she didn’t have so much work to do for Thanksgiving. All she had to do was eat. And maybe cook.

Thumper thought about what Cottontail said and decided he was right too. Really, she had a lot to be thankful for.  Because of the Halloween Hare, most of the gardens were all cleaned up, and because of the Christmas Cottontail, there would be lots of spring flowers. This would also please the Easter Bunny.

So Thumper went home and decided to take advantage of warmer than usual weather to put up some Christmas lights outside, even though it wasn’t yet Thanksgiving. She promised herself she would not turn on the lights until after Thanksgiving. And then she cleaned her house and began to make room for Christmas decorations. She couldn’t resist putting up a few Christmas items before the big feast but planned not to look at them closely until at least the day after Thanksgiving.

She was glad she had worked through her concerns with the Halloween Hare and the Christmas Cottontail.  She was grateful for all they did, that she didn’t have to do. After all, a day to just eat, and maybe cook, and not worry about decorations or visiting gardens around the world was probably just what everyone needed, not only this year, but every year.

The End.