I really don’t like November. It just shows up on your doorstep the day after Halloween looking all self-important. It rings the bell, and after you answer the door, it declares, “October’s over, Dorkface! Time for decorative cornucopias and Mayflower dioramas! Here, have some multi-colored corn you can’t eat and some bone-chilling rain drizzle for the next four weeks.”

It just plows in and CONQUERS October. It crushes your Halloween spirit into nothing and replaces all of our beautiful, multi-colored fall leaves with brownish-grayish lumps of soggy foliage. Not classy, November. As months go, you’re a distant twelfth place.

I suggest we skip November, call it December, and start calling December “Super December.” Because November has nothing going for it. Thanksgiving dinner? It’s just Christmas without the presents.

Oh, wow. I can’t believe I just typed that. What an asinine, materialistic thing to think. I should be banned from all holidays and birthday parties ever. I’m going to go sit in the back corner of a tiny closet, shut the door, and squirt Sriracha sauce up my nose, deep into my sinuses. Forget I said that stuff about "Christmas without the presents."

I suggest we skip November, call it December, and start calling December “Super December.” Because November has nothing going for it. Thanksgiving dinner? It’s just Christmas without the presents.

Anyway, I’m not a big fan of most of November. I’d be perfectly happy if it just started snowing the day after Halloween and then we could put up red and green lights and not feel weird about it. We could get a head start on our nog drinkin’. We could build snowmen that magically come to life and sing holly jolly holiday tunes about how it’s OK to celebrate Christmas in November / because we must remember / that November is the new December / and December has become Super December so ... it’s lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you.

Let’s just roll right from Halloween into the Christmas season, shall we?

Like most of you, I usually complain about how early stores set out the Christmas stuff and how early people start inflating their Santa Claus lawn inflatables, but maybe it wouldn’t be so awful if there was snow on the ground and everyone got on board with it and there wasn’t a whole extra Pilgrim-riddled holiday to worry about. Let’s just make it official and get on with life.

So how do we make this happen? I guess step one is to cancel Thanksgiving. I mean, it’s not like the holiday is without its problems, involving everything from racial issues to mashed potato induced heart attacks. How hard can it be to cancel a national holiday? We’ll start a petition or something.

Step two is a bit of a challenge, I’ll admit. We need to make it snow earlier. I’ve read on the internet that weather control is not only possible but happens all the time, and is probably happening this very second. If we can unnaturally warm the Earth, surely we can artificially cool it for the sake of a holiday celebrated by a fraction of the planet’s inhabitants. This should be America’s new space program. A snow fort on every lawn by 2017.

Now, the whole “giving thanks” part of Thanksgiving is (obviously) something we should keep in some form. So let’s make it part of the holiday season, but call it “Jimmy’s Giving.” It’ll be like a smaller somewhat-related-to-Christmas holiday like St Nick’s Day and the Rose Bowl, keeping us good and excited throughout the now 2-month holiday season.

On Jimmy’s Giving, you don’t have a huge family dinner. Seriously, as things are now, as soon as you’re done with the prep and planning and travel and fistfights of Thanksgiving Dinner, you just have to turn around and do it all over again on Christmas. In contrast, Jimmy’s Giving is a day to gather with only your closest friends and family for a lunch of roast turkey sandwiches where you can maybe light some candles and talk about things for which you are thankful. And I’m not talking about what you might be used to – an awkward pass around the table before you eat when Mom says she’s thankful to have the family together, and cousin Shelly’s boyfriend you just met rambles on too long about being thankful for his lungs because without them he couldn’t breath and without breath, what else do you have, man? Think about it.

I’m talking about a time to really explore the good things in your life, how they got there, and how you can share the blessings with those around you. The food is just there to keep your hands busy. Afterwards, you go outside for a fun game of touch football in the  snow and drink beer. That night, you all make some popcorn, sit down on the couch to watch a government-funded, commercial-free presentation of It’s a Wonderful Life, and then spend the rest of the night doing Jimmy Stewart impressions.

Boom. Jimmy’s Giving: the low impact holiday you didn’t even know you needed.