I truly love Halloween, I do. But as I woke up this morning, dragged my bloated belly through a sea of Snickers wrappers and made vomitous overtures to the toilet, I realized we sometimes take our Oct. 31 celebrations a bit too far. Sure, I had fun last night, but now I have to clean chocolate and puke out of my ‘Slutty Dick Cheney’ costume.

That’s why I have such great appreciation for Thanksgiving, the sweet remedy to my month-long Halloween hangover. It’s the perfect holiday for lazy people, and I’ll tell you why.

The very first Thanksgiving was a true celebration of slacking. The Pilgrims, who disapproved of King Henry VIII’s system of tax cuts (‘Reaganomics’), had just sailed to America on the Ninja, the Pinto and the Dan Marino. Unfortunately, they had not packed any provisions, since the last person to visit the Americas, Christopher Columbus, had told everyone America was ‘a land of milk and honey.’ What he actually meant was, ‘one big cocaine pile, and I am sky-high right now.’

Three weeks after reaching the New World, the settlers had run out of salt-pork and slow-moving children. So there were the Pilgrims, freezing in the snow and starving, when along came Squanto and his tribe of Native Americans.

‘Here,’ said Squanto. ‘We saw that you were hungered and brought you this feast of corn, maize and squirrel.’

‘That is so thoughtful!’ said the Pilgrims. ‘We got you, um, smallpox.’

Thus the Pilgrims gave great thanks that even though they failed to put forth any effort, someone else solved all their problems. This became known as ‘The American Dream.’

Today, the tradition of feasting remains, but the gift exchange lasted only a few years. It ended when Pocahontas offended the Pilgrims by trying to re-gift Oppressive Christian Religion to John Smith, not realizing he already had one.

For the next three centuries, Americans celebrated Thanksgiving by gathering their loved ones and eating. That’s all. They just gorged themselves silly on foods they ate year-round anyway, then sat around staring blindly, as half-chewed turkey often took up the space between their eyeballs and their brains. Some people, however, could still see, and were horrified at how grotesquely obese the country was becoming. Obviously, what the country needed was a quality distraction.

To solve the problem, in 1951 the government invented the Dallas Cowboys and the television, combining the two to create ‘Thanksgiving Day Football.’ In the 1970s, the feminist movement demanded the government provide a secondary form of entertainment, since the feminists were all secretly jealous of how their husbands ogled the Cowboys’ cheerleaders. The government’s solution was to invent the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, with the idea being that the women would be persuaded to shut up and go shopping. It worked brilliantly.

The program was such a success major retailers began having ‘After-Thanksgiving Sales,’ during which huge crowds clawed past each other to get great deals on heart-shaped waffle makers and Tickle Me Elmos. The idea, of course, was that the men at home, who had passed out at halftime, could wake up and watch SportsCenter in peace.

So, with Halloween behind us, you will start to see Thanksgiving decorations in store windows as early as this afternoon. But mostly you’ll see Christmas decorations. After all, nobody tries that hard to push Thanksgiving – because that is celebrating the true spirit of the holiday: ‘Let’s all not try – together!’

If your family insists on celebrating, though, I have a full set of ‘Slutty Pilgrim’ costumes you can borrow.

Seamus O’Connor makes a damn fine hand-turkey. E-mail him at sroconno@syr.edu.

Published on October 30, 2006 at 12:00 pm