The Care Bears Thanksgiving Special?

Over the past few days, I’ve seen a number of people profess guilt over wanting to celebrate the holiday season right now. Basically, they’ve heard “NO WAY, TOO EARLY” so many times that they feel like they’re doing something wrong by embracing the season’s fun trivialities in early November.

Dude, no!

The idea that any rational person would really care when strangers watch Linus wax religious is absurd. 95% of the time, it’s just jokes and idle chatter. Try not to take it too personally.

But yeah, okay, there are a few who voice these opinions more viciously, and may even take your decision to start early as some weird personal offense. These really aren’t the sorts of people you should be listening to. It’s like when people try to make others feel bad for liking a movie that is popularly disliked, or vice versa. Differences in opinions are wonderful, but shaming people over their harmless hobbies or passions is one of my biggest pet peeves. Just an utter waste of energy from every angle.

Don’t mistake my meaning, here. This isn’t a call for everyone to start celebrating Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatever else RIGHT NOW. Some of you prefer to wait, whether to reserve your spirit for when it really counts, or because you don’t feel very festive just yet. Some of you may not celebrate at all, whether because of your beliefs, or simply because you don’t like this season. That’s totally fine! Of course it is! I’m just saying, I hate to see people spite themselves for the sake of some abstract sense of form or procedure.

Just do whatever feels right for you. If it’s nothing, a little or a lot, so be it! The beauty of this season (and I’m counting Halloween in this, so we’re covering a four month spread) is the increased number of opportunities to lose ourselves in silly, happy things that hurt nobody. It drives me bonkers to see people navigating this like it’s a minefield. Have your fun, however you want it!

ANYWAY.

Here’s the Care Bears Thanksgiving special, which really is a thing that exists!

Grams Bear’s Thanksgiving Surprise came out in 1986. Go on, try it.