WASHINGTON – The holiday season begins: Thanksgiving and all the turkey jokes; Christmas and all the gifts we give and receive; and finally the New Year and all the bowling games, more food, more drinks, leftover turkey and Pepto Bismol! Then finally getting back to normal and knowing that we will do it all again next year. When it comes to excess, there’s nothing like the holiday season.
New Year’s Day, the last day of this trinity of overindulgences, is my least favorite day of the holiday season. The most annoying example of excess in the subway are football matches. The advertisements appeal to the mentality of the eternal male teenager of this species. With an eye on increasing market share, the National Football League and NCAA are enticing more and more women to become spectators alongside sideline commentators and, who knows, maybe even players. Are you laughing?
On May 4, 1970, I was invited to appear on a national television program featuring Pete Rozelle, then commissioner of the National Football League, and Aileen Hernandez, then spokeswoman for the National Organization for Women. Hernandez surprised Rozelle by claiming that in generations, women will be sturdy enough to play in the NFL. She stole the show with her gasconadas. Another guest, John Filo, had taken the iconic photo of Ohio National Guard protesters shooting at Kent State University a few hours earlier. At least four protesters were killed and nine injured. Filo barely spoke that evening, even though he won a Pulitzer Prize for his photo. Now Hernandez is dead, and the NFL has yet to welcome her bowl innovation, much less the Super Bowl.
The sports commentary on over-the-top bowling is equally childish, although I doubt many sports fans listen to it all with such attention. In the elderly days, Howard Cosell at least appealed to those interested in language with his commentary. Football fans left Cosell’s word festival with a modern word almost every time it appeared. I think I heard him say the word “troglodyte” once, or was it “internal”? Anyway, he had fun.
As for Christmas, its meaning was lost many years ago when the huge exchange of gifts overshadowed the memory of the birth of a baby in a manger in Bethlehem. I think Christmas is more a celebration of our wealth than of our piety. We have become so affluent that a Christmas present on Christmas morning is almost unnecessary. What’s so special about the gift you receive for Christmas? I say wait a few days and buy when it goes on sale.
Then there’s Thanksgiving. Honestly, I think it’s my favorite day of the holiday season. The family meets year after year. Children get older, bigger and stronger. They end up taking their kids with them as mom and dad get older and darker. Who cares if the turkey is too arid? We didn’t come for the turkey, but for the company of a family meal and, dare I say it, tradition. Thanksgiving should have a special meaning for Americans, and I think it does. It was observed sporadically until President Abraham Lincoln made it a federal holiday in 1863, at the height of the Civil War, and it remained so.
Now, of course, the smallpox of political partisanship threatens this great feast. I’m told Democrats and Republicans bring their favorite pet peeves to the Thanksgiving table. Everyone thinks they can be Tucker Carlson or Greg Gutfeld. They can’t support but complain about the greatness of Joe Biden, Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis. I say: leave politics aside for a day or two. You may even want to put it off until Christmas. You may find that life at a family gathering can be more enjoyable without politics. People say the bias has gone too far. I agree. This year, take a stand against it. No politics as dinner!
Glory to Ukraine!
R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is the founder and editor-in-chief of The American Spectator. He is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and most recently author of The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
