"The Culture's Quest to Eliminate THANKSGIVING"

My wife and I love MOVIES...so much so that we visited the New Jersey Shore the other night and enjoyed a screening of "JAWS" right on the beach!! Wow, you've never REALLY seen "Jaws" until you've seen it with beach sand under your chair, and the WAVES crashing on the shore about 100 feet behind you while feeling the chill on a July evening (the movie took place in early July.)  As contradictory as it seems, I, personally, love authenticity....REALITY in my fantasy, if you will. I tell you all of this so that, if you DIDN'T know it, I'm a stickler for STICKING with a movie's original intent, where possible.

Which leads me to my point about the movie depicted above. 

"Planes, Trains and Automobiles" has been one of my favorite movies for about 30 years, and that's because it's about two guys who travel many miles to get home for THANKSGIVING (my favorite holiday.)  It is the ONLY distinctly Thanksgiving-themed movie that I know of.  My kids and I, when possible, always watched this "Thanksgiving" movie around Thanksgiving when they were growing up!!  It was a Thanksgiving TRADITION for us, and many others.  At the OUTSET of the movie, if you've never seen it, the screen declares that it's "a few days before Thanksgiving" (can't recall if it was 2 or 3 days.) Why, the movie was even released the day before Thanksgiving in 1987 with THIS artwork (below)....

Now contrast THIS artwork with the NEW design, at the top of this blog!!  See how they are now trying to make this movie..............."Christmasy"??  Why was the ORIGINAL artwork good for 30 years, but now they've suddenly CHANGED it?? As a Christian movie buff, I can tell you such a change is EXTREMELY rare.  And I'll answer my own question....THEY CHANGED THE POSTER ART TO A "CHRISTMASY" THEME BECAUSE OUR DECAYING CULTURE NOW WANTS TO QUICKLY SKIP OVER THANKSGIVING (which is about giving thanks to God) AND RUSH RIGHT TO CHRISTMAS (which is, for most, about getting stuff from people.)  This goes right along with a thankless, godless culture which even moves "Black Friday" (traditionally, the day AFTER Thanksgiving) to be BEFORE Thanksgiving now.  Stores are even open for Black Friday sales ON Thanksgiving Day recently, with covetous mobs trampling over one another to get "bargains" for which they seem ready to sell their souls and shed their humanity.  And, in my opinion, the way Christmas decorations begin to show up in stores in AUGUST is part of this "Bypass Thanksgiving" mentality, ALSO....we Christians only HELP this problem with our "Christmas in July" offerings.  Why not call them "Thank Offerings in July" to uphold THANKSGIVING??   When WE start celebrating Christmas in June or July, we have NO moral right to complain about stores who begin to commercialize Christmas in September and October, people.  

This corrupt culture is out to ELIMINATE Thanksgiving, and the changing artwork of "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" is just one more example.  I'm so glad that our church is having an evening of prayer and praise in lieu of our REGULAR Prayer Meeting tonight, as it gives us opportunity to (the way I understand it) just THANK God for things instead of only ASKING for things!!  The Christian church should NOT go along with the world as the world slyly tries to eliminate THANKSGIVING altogether.  We, above all others, should be thankful at ALL times for the fact that we know Christ came into the world to save sinners....US.  And I'm thankful for a church that will have (dare I say it?) "THANKSGIVING in July" tonight!!

Because this corrupt culture we're in SURE doesn't want Thanksgiving at ALL, anymore.

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By the way, we saw the new "Spider-Man: Far From Home" yesterday in the theater and it was FANTASTIC. Wow, best "Spider-Man" since "Spider-Man 2" (the Tobey McGuire series) 15 years ago!!  I won't say more, except SEE it!! I don't want to spoil it for you.

Above: My new "Rocky II" T-shirt to celebrate 40 years since the movie's release this summer.  By the way, the "Rocky" and Creed" movies have all either RELEASED during Thanksgiving or REFERENCED Thanksgiving prominently, which I like!!  (But "P.T. and A." was explicitly CENTERED on my favorite holiday.)