The holidays, based on concepts of gratitude, selflessness and love can be boiled down to the consumption of unnecessary stuff.

By early October, retailers have already divided up their stores: one quarter Halloween, one quarter Thanksgiving, and one half Christmas.

But by Nov. 1, before you can say “half-priced cavities,” the Christmas decor, like some unstudied bacteria, has multiplied and overtaken the store.

Wreaths and fake Christmas trees that smell like hard-to-pronounce chemicals crowd the aisles. Mechanical Santas shout “ho, ho, ho” so many times, you might think they are in a dark alley looking for a good deal on a cold lonely night.

The halls of almost every store are decked with every angel in heaven and hell, mistletoe for loveless losers to accidentally walk under, only to be surprised by the ugly distant cousin, eight zillion glass balls and enough stocking — which will be filled with teeth-rotting candy — to cover the feet many poor third world children.

Oh, and some plastic dead leaves (just in case there's a shortage of real ones), a few pilgrim hats and feather headdresses (for an authentic Thanksgiving celebration) and a cornucopia here or there.

Cynical? Maybe. True? Absolutely.

Thanksgiving is overshadowed by Christmas. It has become the “holiday between Halloween and Christmas.” Why?

Well there's not a whole lot of marketing in Thanksgiving. Ever heard of Thanksgiving M&M’s? That's because they don’t exist.

The only things Thanksgiving gets are the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (which, I might add, features some Christmas-themed floats and performances), turkey (or ham, the traditional Christmas main course that has been prodding its way into this holiday for years), cranberry sauce, green bean casserole (so Campbell’s can sell you cream of mushroom soup — who buys it otherwise?) and Chex mix (so General Mills can sell the unpopular Wheat Chex).

Thanksgiving is just a day to consume too many calories, shut down schools and post offices, demand off from work and sit on the sofa watching Christmas movies, in preparation for the “next holiday.”

We have completely forgotten how, many, many years ago, it was a day that brought together the new Americans and the old Americans, a day that celebrated food, prosperity, togetherness and, most importantly, life.

It was a day in trying times to be thankful to be alive. The two parts of the word are, after all, “thanks” and “giving:” Giving thanks.

Are we still thankful? What for? For our nice houses, cars, laptops, iPods, Hollister sweatshirts and college educations: our material possessions.

I remember one Thanksgiving my sister said she was thankful for her computer, a collection of metal parts and wires. Have we sunk so low that all we have to be thankful for are our material things, instead of our freedom, a roof over our head, food in our bellies and our lives?

Maybe we have had so much for so long that it is impossible for us to even imagine life any other way. While our grandparents struggled through the Great Depression, we have lived in a prosperous time.

Yes, there are those who are “less fortunate,” but even less fortunate in this country is wealthy compared to other parts of the world.

When did the holidays in general become so commercial? Today, the holidays are one endless commercial for sugar, butter, ham, Toys R Us, diamond rings, McDonalds, dyed candy, bunches of colored synthetic fibers, giant socks, balls of glass, almonds, department stores, turkey, cream of mushroom soup, more sugar, sprinkles, cars, computers. Stuff.

The holidays, based on concepts of gratitude, selflessness and love can be boiled down to the consumption of unnecessary stuff.

But we are constantly wanting more: I want, I wish I had. The desires are never-ending. We are consuming and consuming, yet never satisfied.

The material things in our world are like sugar — we consume so quickly that, in a half hour, we are hungry again.

This Thanksgiving, it is my hope that in between bites of turkey, we take a moment to realize how precious life is and how good we have it. Take a moment to forget all the “things” we don’t have and focus on what we do have, which is a lot more than many others have.

That, to me, is Thanksgiving, the holiday. Not red- and green-dyed sugar bits, not shiny cars or pretty rings, but that realization of the existence of humanity; that there are six billion other people in the world.

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