Thanksgiving Countdown, episode 6.

Give it up for The Professor over at The Wounded Mosquito.

The Wounded Mosquito is a must-visit for musings on just about anything, and bonus, The Professor recently opened comments on his posts. Let the dialogue begin!

I think you'll all appreciate The Professor's well-thought out advice in:

How to Prevent a Turkey Day Tragedy

Over the last several years, Thanksgiving has become the red-headed stepchild to Halloween and Christmas within the holiday fraternity. Whether it’s the ever-advancing push of the Christmas shopping season or the elitist holiday symbolism of Tim Burton’s “Nightmare Before Christmas,” the message is clear: at best, Thanksgiving is a warm-up, and probably closer to a late-season speed bump on the way to Yuletide Bliss.

But it is time to stop griping about old news. Today is a day of action, and it’s time to step in and save one of our most cherished national holidays. The formula is simple: take what is making the competition so successful, and emulate it. If you can’t beat ‘em, copy the crap out of them.

Here are a few starter suggestions:

Redesign the Thanksgiving Mascot

Christmas has Santa Claus. Easter has the Easter Bunny. Halloween has Keith Richards. And what does Thanksgiving have? Well it has a turkey. A turkey with a lousy gig, if you ask me. Santa Claus brings presents. The Easter Bunny gives you candy. But that stupid turkey just gets eaten.

If Thanksgiving wants to survive the 21^st Century, it’s time to roll out a tag team of bona-fide custom mascots: Pilgrim Pete and Indigenous Anoki. On Wednesday night, all the kids in the neighborhood will suit up in either Native American dress or traditional Quaker garb and go door-to-door with their own Cornucopias, gathering the raw materials for Thanksgiving dinner from generous neighbors. Then in the middle of the night, Pilgrim Pete and Indigenous Anoki will magically float down the chimney and turn those cans of sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie filling into a wonderful meal for all to consume, along with a hand-written message of mutual cooperation and bipartisanship that can be read during the festivities.

Commission a Thanksgiving Anthem

It’s hard to imagine a Christmas season without its signature music, whether it’s a traditional religious song like “O, Holy Night” or a heartwarming secular hymn like “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.” Halloween gets “Monster Mash” and “Thriller,” and “Thriller” even comes with its own line dance. Again, what does Thanksgiving have? Bupkus.

Thanksgiving needs its own song, and I think Neil Diamond is the guy to turn to. It may be too late to get Michael Jackson to choreograph an official Thanksgiving Dance, but according to many reports, Neil Diamond is still alive. Besides, he’s already given us “America,” and he’s probably the only guy out there who could talk-sing his way through phrases like “bounteous bumper crop” and "extend the warm hand of fellowship and tolerance" with a straight face.

Add Some Good Old-Fashioned Sex and Violence

If Michael Bay has taught us anything, it is that there is nothing more American than a glassy-eyed bombshell in Daisy Dukes running in slow motion in front of a massive explosion. As a missionary in Northwest Illinois, I met a family whose yearly Thanksgiving tradition was to go out into their backyard and blast old TV sets with shotguns. You see where I’m going? That’s right: Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders shooting guns at halftime of football games. Loving families gathered in backyards and back alleys across the country, bravely exercising their right to bear fully-automatic arms. Charleton Heston’s corpse is expunging a salty drop of tear-like dew just thinking about it. This will work, people...trust me.

These are just a few simple ideas to get us started. Once we apply our famous American work-ethic, I’m sure the innovations will start rolling in. Thanksgiving Day is as American a holiday as the 4th of July, and we must preserve it by any means necessary.