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Thanksgiving Eve is the best eve of all the eves. Christmas Eve is a constant scramble to make sure all of your presents are bought, then you have dinner with your extended family, or maybe you’re one of those unfortunate souls whose family does midnight mass. So much for getting drunk on eggnog at Christmas Eve dinner.
Well, how about New Years Eve then? HA! If New Year’s Eve is your favorite eve, then I really don’t want to know you. New Year’s Eve isn’t worth the hassle. Drop a couple hundred bucks on bottomless champagne and well liquor specials just to watch some stupid clock and drunkenly make out with a stranger? Ordinarily that would be a spectacular night, but NYE is just an overpriced, hot mess of a holiday, and I hate it.
Which brings me to Thanksgiving Eve, better known as Black Wednesday. It’s the night that kicks off the longest weekend of the year. Four beautiful days off to shovel mass quantities of food and alcohol into your body and the subsequent leftovers from said quantities of food and alcohol in the days following.
By all accounts, Black Wednesday is the best bar night of the year. I love Black Wednesday more than I love St. Patrick’s day, Cinco de Mayo and Mardi Gras combined. Everyone is back in their hometowns, ready to reunite with their old friends and engage in the type of debauchery usually reserved for high school misfits and alcoholic college kids.
Hangovers have no chance. Just once a year, you hold the edge over morning headaches, nausea, IBS and crippling anxiety. All you have to do the next day is gorge yourself on starchy food and watch football. It sounds like your normal Sunday, but it isn’t. You’re allowed this one day. No judgement. Well, no judgement until you’re forced with the dilemma of facing your family members at dinner.
Never mind that you’re going to encounter that guy from your high school who is already divorced. Never mind that you’re going to run into several exes throughout the course of the night. Never mind that your bar tab is going to equal your monthly car payment. This is Black Wednesday. You are well within your rights to do as you please. Your high school sweetheart looks good. Go for it. Black Wednesday. No regrets. Grab that net and catch that beautiful butterfly! There’s no better way to get into the holiday spirit than igniting your nostalgia via late night hookup with the person who gave you over-the-pants HJs on the reg during your junior year, even though it will probably be in a location ranging from a bar bathroom to your parents’ basement. Again, this is Black Wednesday, a free-for-all in which the only goal is to get inappropriately drunk with your hometown friends. Eye of the tiger. Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can’t lose.
It’s the perfect night for Friendsgiving, where you are free from the tethers of your family’s judging stares as you put away your fourth glass of wine before dinner. More importantly, it’s the last night before you’re fully dropped into the war zone that is the holiday season.
My theory on why Black Wednesday is so popular is because people are reunited with their friends. You spend months away from your compadres who aren’t close by anymore. The sheer sight of them makes you want to drink the town’s Fireball supply dry. The promise of a four-day weekend obviously contributes, but when it comes down to it, it’s the beginning of the most wonderful time of the year. When friends come to call, it’s the hap-happiest season of all. Christmas and the New Year are just around the corner and more paid days off coming with it. Your bank account will soon be stuffed with holiday bonuses, Christmas checks from relatives, and fresh, cushy socks on Christmas morning. Who doesn’t like a good pair of socks?
Happy Black Wednesday, everyone. Be safe out there.
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Brian McGannon
What do I love? I love happy hour, a good golf tan, and getting moderately drunk during dinner.
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brianmcgannon
you are bumming me out dude!
-1,200 miles from family and friends
I’m 720 miles away from mine. It hurts.
2,500.
7,800….fuck terrorism.
Thank you for your service. Get back to the states safe will ya?
Yeahhh…never done this.