Time is flying. Tempus is fugiting. This column will darken Up & Coming Weekly newsstands and various bird cage floors the day before Thanksgiving. The holiday season is upon us like a giant boulder of calories rolling down Mount Everest. The gluttony has only just begun. Loosen your belts. It’s the Eating Season from Thanksgiving until Jan. 2, 2026. Who better to guide us through this season of empty calories than our old pal Pugsley Addams, who appeared in the Thanksgiving pageant dressed as a turkey chanting, “EAT ME.” Pugsley offers advice on navigating this fraught period of the calendar. His tips are below. Abandon your diets, politics, and self-control, all who enter herein.
The season starts with the traditional showing of the WKRP episode of the Thanksgiving turkey drop. WKRP’s star newsman, Les Nessman, describes the birds being dropped from a helicopter to provide free turkey dinners. Unfortunately, these turkeys could not fly. They crash into the ground like sacks of wet cement. Holiday shoppers run for their lives to avoid the rain of hapless turkeys.
“Oh, the humanity!” cries Les. The scene ends with the station manager saying, “As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
Thus warmed up for Thanksgiving, kindly ponder the day’s events. The Macy’s parade of corporate balloons begins the ritual. The house is filled with exquisite aromas of cooking all morning long for a meal to be consumed in 15 minutes. Dinner is filled with political land mines and more calories than stars in the sky. Will Drunk Uncle expound his MAGA views only to be confronted with Cousin Elise’s support for ANTIFA? Can they be separated far enough from each other to avoid the inevitable explosion? Next comes the ritual food coma during the Detroit Lions football game.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, the cleanup begins. What to do with the gigantic amount of grease generated by the turkey? No empty can is large enough to contain it all. Can’t pour it down the sink where it would coagulate into a call to the plumber. The ultimate solution is pouring it into an obscure corner of the yard, where also lies the vain hope the dogs won’t find it. Naturally, the dogs find it. They return exuberantly to the house, muzzles covered in dirt glued to their faces by turkey grease. Dogs love Thanksgiving.
Black Friday looms as that special time of year when bargain hunters arise before dawn to shove and trample each other while seeking Christmas deals to die for. Somewhere in this fair land, Black Friday shootings break out in food courts in malls that are otherwise empty the rest of the year. The unholy trinity of Mariah Carey’s super festive anthem “All I Want for Christmas is You,” Elmo & Patsy’s “Grandma Got Run Over by A Reindeer,” and Madonna’s “Santa Baby” play endlessly like Chinese water torture.
I used to look forward to watching the Charlie Brown Christmas special on ABC every year. But the Tech Dudes at Apple bought Charlie Brown in 2020 and have held him hostage ever since. If you want to see Charlie, you have to pay a ransom to Apple to catch a glimpse of his not-bad little Christmas tree. Sigh. I miss Snoopy’s brilliant ice-skating display.
The Christmas TV ads become inescapable. My favorite is the NC Uneducational Lottery Ad featuring shiny peppy people at a Christmas party who are given the gift of “What If?’ They get Holiday Scratch Off Tickets, which could make everyone’s dreams come true as Christmas presents. The happy folks receiving Christmas Scratch Off lottery tickets dream of a big win, buying houses, trips to Europe, and living happily ever after. If spending the kid’s college fund on lottery tickets isn’t the real meaning of Christmas, call me Ebeneezer Scrooge. Makes you wonder why the Three Wise Men didn’t bring lottery tickets to Bethlehem, doesn’t it?
Between Christmas and New Year, your tax preparer sends you the annual tax organizer so you can render unto Caesar. Nothing says holidays are ending like the arrival of the tax organizer. The days between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day have blurred into Bub and Hubbub. They end in the cold grey dawn of January 2nd. The annual ritual of resolving to lose weight, becoming more active, and being kinder comes into focus. Gyms are joined and abandoned. Resolutions disappear into the perma-frost of failed January good intentions.
The final coup de grace of the end of the Holiday season is the arrival of the credit card bills. As the Beach Boys once sang: “Christmas comes this time each year.”
Truer words were never warbled. Merry Christmas anyway.

(Illustration by Pitt Dickey)