Sucksgiving
Sucksgiving is a modern American holiday, celebrated on November 22 of each year. It was created by Tim Morrison and Jim MacQuarrie in the fall of 1997 as an antidote to the relentless cheeriness and good spirits of the holiday season. Sucksgiving is a day to gather together with the people you love, and reflect upon all those things in your respective lives that truly suck.

The date of Sucksgiving, November 22, was chosen not only because of its proximity to Thanksgiving, but because of how much that date exemplifies the principles of Sucksgiving. On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed by an assassin's bullet in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. With its popular, young President stolen from it in what remains the most public of all American assassinations, the United States suffered a severe blow to its sense of safety and security.

In short, it sucked.

Meanwhile, over 4600 miles away in Oxford, England, another great man left this mortal coil. C.S. Lewis, theologian and author of such works as Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and, perhaps most famously, The Chronicles of Narnia series, passed away in his bedroom in Oxford, England, just a week shy of his 65th birthday.

This also sucked.

Whereas normally the passing of a man of Lewis's stature and renown would have garnered a fair degree of public acknowledgment and reflection, his death was instead greatly overshadowed by the extensive media coverage of the assassination of the American President. Much of the public would not become aware of Lewis's death until several days later.

That, too, sucked.

The patron saint of Sucksgiving is Rodney Dangerfield, born Jacob Cohen on November 22, 1921. An American actor and comedian, Dangerfield's comedy act was often built upon the theme of how things in life sucked. In addition to his date of birth, he is the patron saint of this holiday because, as he so often said himself, he never got any respect.

And that sucked.

The celebration of Sucksgiving, much like Thanksgiving, centers around a meal. There is, however, one essential difference: the food must suck. The traditional core dish of the Sucksgiving dinner is, naturally, succotash. Children's frozen dinners and blue Jell-O are particular favorites, and one can wash them down with a warm can of Moxie. And Sucksgiving dessert is the ideal time to eat the fruitcake you were sent by an elderly and unimaginative relative.

After eating, the persons at the Sucksgiving table name off all the things in their own lives that have sucked in the previous year. The mistakes, the failures, the missed opportunities. It is a time of catharsis and spiritual cleansing, an outlet for all of life's various aggravations and miseries, an opportunity to vent about just how and in what ways the past year simply sucked.

When all have finished expressing their frustrations with the year past, the remaining food is thrown away, and the Sucksgiving celebrants move on to eating something good instead, still with empty stomachs but filled with hope that the next year might be better than the last.

Happy Suckgiving, one and all!


Page Created by Loren Collins.

This article is published using Comic Sans MS, the suckiest of popular fonts.