Thanksgiving is upon us like coats on the guest room bed, and although I am eminently good at being thankful, I’m a turkey at giving thanks in writing.

This has been a life-long problem for me, because in my family the Sixth Commandment is “Thou shalt submit a thank you card, even if thine gift sucketh big time.” Note that the original Sixth Commandment condemned murder, which in my family is not quite as severely frowned upon as neglecting to send a note reading, “I can’t tell you how deeply I am filled with gratitude every time I gaze upon your glorious gift of the Hickory Farms Sausage Delights Assortment, despite being a vegan.”

I’m bitter that mutual respect and sincere gratitude have largely been supplanted by the shallow greeting card, and I loathe having my kindness judged by postal weight. Still, there are plenty of other things to tease my family about, and I can’t blame thank you card mania on them. Early settlers started the craze hundreds of years before my parents were born. Well, at least a hundred years. There’s no telling how old my parents are without cutting them open and counting the rings.

Research shows [Source: my barber] that the thank you card dates back to the very first Thanksgiving festival, which began Dec. 13, 1621, in Plymouth, Mass., at Uncle Ricky’s house, two blocks up from the Knights of Columbus just past the Pep Boys. According to invitations carefully preserved by the Smithsonian Institute, the default museum for ignorant columnists, the Thanksgiving feast was intended to start at “2 p.m. Eastern/11 a.m. Pacific.” This wording seems odd, considering that nobody had discovered the Pacific Ocean yet, but who am I to challenge the validity of the Smithsonian? They have Fonzie’s jacket, for Christ’s sake. Actually, Christ’s sake is another holiday. Let’s get back to Thanksgiving.

The pilgrims were late for the feast, owing to complications regarding which point of the tri-corner hat should face front. Luckily, their Indian counterparts were a patient people, and they busied themselves watching the Detroit Lions getting their asses kicked until the settlers arrived. If you’re thinking, “Wait a minute…something’s fishy about this historical account,” you’re absolutely correct. For years we have believed that Native Americans adorned their faces with war paint or symbolic markings, when in fact they were simply painted up for the football game, hoping to get on Fox.

Once the festival began in earnest, the children spent the afternoon making paper turkeys by tracing their hands on construction paper, while legendary Indian Sasquatch taught the pilgrims how to plant crops before disappearing into the corn maze with James Earl Jones and Shoeless Joe Jackson. Because the pilgrims were on the couch with their belts unbuckled, they didn’t even notice that Sasquatch had disappeared. To this day, people are still searching the woods for Little Bigfoot, as he is sometimes called.

Dismayed at failing to thank the Indians in person, renowned settler Red Rolfe left the very first thank you note on a nearby stump, weighing it down with a mug of mead so it wouldn’t blow away. There is conflicting evidence as to whether Rolfe used a coaster. The note, which is still on display at the Smithsonian next to Archie Bunker’s chair, reads:

"Dude! We were so wiped from the tryptophan, we felleth asleep in quarter the third. Thankee for the gift of agriculture and the lovely Hickory Farms Venison Basket. For Christmas, come by our crib and we shall introduce thee to the joyous and (as far as we know) perfectly healthy gift of the tobacco leaf. If we hearest not back from thee by December the 18th, we shall assumeth thine lands, shelters and women are also ours for the taking. Peace!”

Thanks to this arse, we’re still regularly forced to give thanks to the tune of $2.95 ($3.95 Canada) plus postage. While the United States Postal Service is no doubt in league with the greeting card people, the mail carriers must also detest this practice. Imagine your local mailman or female-woman opening a mailbox to a stack of 200 wedding invitations, knowing they will be followed three months later by a similar stack, albeit with less rice paper.

Even the most diligent thank you card-igans among you must agree that wedding thank you cards are the most tiresome of all. By card 78, sincerity, like the bride’s bouquet, has been thrown to the wind:

“Dear Kelly, the seventh in the set of eight place settings you bought from our online registry will without question be our most cherished gift! P.S. For no reason in particular, don’t mention this to Karen, who got us the eighth setting; we’re writing her card next.”

Aside from the postage and the time commitment, my cynicism also derives from the absence of an opposing viewpoint. Though it may not come across in my writing, people often tell me I’m too nice, and I frequently get stomped on while turning the other cheek. It would be much easier if there were a thank you card alternative…the Fuck You Card.

“I know you passed me over for a promotion, so I thought I’d drop you a line. Fuck you.”

Think of the kitschy, niche card lines that would come out! The cute cartoon cowboy…

“I heard you slept with my girlfriend. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Sincerely, Dave.”

…or those ubiquitous “age gag” cards:

“I was going to wait until you’re 50^th birthday to say, ‘fuck you,’ but I wanted to get it in before you died. Tee hee!’”

I’ll work on the patent, but in the meantime I recommend a more efficient and economical expression of gratitude: the high five. What’s wrong with a simple “Up top!” fist bump from the bride and groom? They could lap the reception hall like Cal Ripken, Jr., passing 2,130. Thirty seconds – done!

In closing one of his concerts, Steve Martin once said, “I’d like to thank each and every one of you for coming out tonight. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you….” Like Martin, I’d love to wrap up a lifetime of appreciation by making this article an open letter to everybody that ever did anything nice for me. Still, every time I try to say “to hell with Hallmark,” my family and friends screw it up by being so damn generous. How can I be waging war on the thank you card when my friends and family are remembering my birthday, buying me lawnmowers and major appliances, giving my kids expensive video games and even, well, waging war?

They’ve all done so much to be thankful for, and I hope that my inability to put paper to pen won’t cause them to forsake me, because there’s a very good chance I’m already threesaken. I guess I’d better make a resolution to be better about sending thank you cards. I’ll thank you to be patient until that happens.