Thanksgiving will always hold a special place in my heart. November’s final Thursday always brings back golden memories of the Lions being utterly decimated, my first taste of whiskey via my sneaky uncle and Grandma’s to-die-for-pumpkin pie (R.I.P.).

Everything’s different now, save for our football team. I guess from now on there will be less family members and more violent shopping sprees.

Black Friday has now been ushered into Thanksgiving, everyone. Looks like future Thursdays will be much blacker.

That is in no way a pun towards my cousin’s recent interracial marriage, but I really wish it were. Congratulations, by the way! I was too drunk and hitting on your friends to say it then.

This reassignment of the days is truly disheartening, brought to you by the same mislabeling marketing team that introduced Christmas in July.

If we trace back America’s family tree, only two branches are really rooted in our culture: Independence Day, where we blow a bunch of poop up in the sky, and Thanksgiving, which will now be utilized for our indulgence of feverous spending.

I won’t be seeing a good portion of my family this Thanksgiving due to their time constraints of 16-hour shifts at malls or superstores, unless we start munching mashed potatoes sometime around dawn. This is one of the few days a year family travels from across the country, but marketing teams deem it’s a better use of time if employees fight off mobs.

This is a battle already lost, too. I would issue a boycott, for all those jittery bugged-out-on-coffee shoppers to hold off until it’s officially Friday and strike storefronts at midnight, but I’ve already seen people with pitched tents pitching tents outside of Best Buy, overly excited to indulge.

This is America, right? Who’s going to resist a $300 discount on a 72-inch flat screen television that probably exceeds the wingspan of most modern apartment feng shui?

I admit I am a mousy man and have not the testicular courage to witness firsthand Black Friday madness. I watched plenty of footage on YouTube, though, of store workers being trampled down and two elderly women duking it out over a vacuum cleaner.

Maybe my balls will drop and I will meander a store and catch this action up close and personal. I’ll bring a portable rotisserie and eat turkey legs on the run.

I will then see the same exact portable rotisserie for sixty percent less and go into an Incredible Hulk-like transformation and start clubbing children. Not in a race over any specific product, just for the hell of it.

It looks like if you want to spend some quality time with your family this year, you should meet up with your loved ones sometime around noon on Thanksgiving, strap on your riot gear and hit the largest mall in the vicinity. Upgrade your shopping cart with bulletproof armor and attach a gun turret to the handle – you’re going to need it.

Come to think of it, I’m desperately in need of a new frying pan. Mine’s been soiled with burnt egg particle for months now.  I’m bringing my old skillet and crushing the skull of any man, woman or child that dare try to take the last one on the shelf. Guess I’ve got the holiday spirit after all. Happy hunting, everyone!