Something unusual happened to me this month: I received a Thanksgiving card.
I mean, it’s not completely unheard of. Years ago, when I worked in sales, I had a customer who insisted on giving each of his clients a card at Thanksgiving instead of at Christmas.
He said it bypassed the whole “should it say Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas” falderol (the alleged War on Christmas was a thing even 30 years ago, it seems) and, as a bonus, the card became a conversation piece because it was unique.
He was right, at least as it relates to the greeting I received decades later. “Oh, look,” I said, as though I were a character in an early-reader Dick and Jane book. “It’s a card, a Thanksgiving card from my insurance agent. See the card. What a special card. I must hang it on my wall. Jane, will you help me hang it? Will you help me hang my card on the wall?”
Spoiler Alert One: The card never made it to the wall.
Spoiler Alert Two: I didn’t think like Dick and Jane. I’m not really a Dick.
Still, the card did get me thinking about the somewhat odd practice of sending Thanksgiving greetings. Hallmark says Americans send 16 million cards annually to commemorate the fourth Thursday of November. More accurately, the company said Americans “exchanged” them, which makes me think of a giant swap meet with cardstock images of Norman Rockwell-esque dinner tables, cranberries and stuffing. I’ll trade your candied yams for two slices of pumpkin pie with whipped cream!
Spoiler Alert Three: It didn’t really make me think of this.
By way of comparison, Hallmark says Americans send 1.3 billion Christmas cards annually, so Santa has cooked Tom Turkey’s goose in that department.
All this sent me on a nostalgic stroll through Internet images of Thanksgiving cards past, courtesy of clickamericana.com, which offers 14 such cards allegedly from the turn of the last century. (Since it’s on the Internet, it’s hard to know for sure.)
A common theme across many of the images is a woebegone attempt to turn living turkeys into a holiday symbol in much the same way that Santa has come to represent a secular Christmas. One key difference is revelers don’t chow down on roasted St. Nick at the climax of the Yule season, so any attempts to transform Tom Turkey into a fun-loving harbinger of late November must reckon with the oven at the end of the tale.
The images offer lushly painted images of kids petting turkeys or shyly offering ears of corn to the birds. In one, two turkeys − I would assume husband and wife, but I can’t speak to the matrimonial customs of genus Meleagris − are out for a Sunday (or is that Thursday?) drive in an open-top automobile. While their progress appears leisurely, perhaps they are really putting the pedal to the metal, or the shank to the crank, to escape the cook’s hatchet.
Some of the cards have sentiments straight out of squaresville. They are also examples of exceedingly poor verse. One reads, “I welcome this day of mellow fruitfulness, As just one more occasion to wish you happiness.”
Another unimaginatively offers, “May all your dreams come true Thanksgiving Day.” A third promises “good wishes for Thanksgiving Day,” accompanied by a freshly killed turkey, its head still attached.
Maybe it’s not so hard to see why Thanksgiving cards have failed to become an enduring custom.
Nevertheless, some copywriter scored with this message: “While we indulge in the prosperity and pleasures of the present, let us have high hopes for the future.”
That sounds so nice I’m going to put it in all the Thanksgiving cards I send out this year.
Spoiler Alert Four: C’mon, you know better.
Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig
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