This is the greatest morning of the year. It’s Fall. We wake up, and the house smells like baked turkey. Mom is already up, has been for a couple of hours, and is flitting to and fro, checking ovens, opening the fridge, fixing another coffee, and snapping at Dad, who is trimming a little slice of the turkey breast for himself while her back is turned. Soon, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will be on the television, and everyone will stop and watch a bit.

At lunch, the family gathers around and eats a feast worthy of kings. Turkey, casseroles, stuffing, cranberry sauce, the works. You down several glasses of water, wine, soda, cider, lemonade, or whatever else is available (iced tea is the best) in order to wash down the gluttony. Someone announces that the game is on and you get up slowly, unsure why you ate three slices of pie (one pumpkin, one apple, one pecan), and walk  just as slowly to the TV room.

The day wraps up and you eat the traditional leftover turkey sandwich for supper. That’s when it happens. Someone grabs the keys and says “Let’s go shopping!” You’re appalled at the suggestion, and you don’t exactly know why anyone would even be open on Thanksgiving. Who would do that to their employees. “Surely,” you think. “That this is some cruel joke. I don’t have the energy to even digest this sandwich, must less go shopping.”

This is the worst tradition, and I maintain it’s un-American to even think about Christmas until 5 a.m. tomorrow morning. People argue with me about this on Twitter, and it’s always amazing to me how many people on the Internet could be so wrong. Thanksgiving is an American holiday, one that recognizes the original settlers of this great land and their struggle to survive, and how the native inhabitants came to help them. Sure, the relationship between the settlers and the natives would grow a bit tense a few generations out, but for that one moment, America was as it should be: united.

Santa Claus is a vicious, imperialistic force who has constantly tried to invade the other holidays. His takeover of Thanksgiving is damn-near complete, and he is encroaching on Halloween as we speak. The Fall is a magical time, the best time of the year, and we are actually offering it as a sacrifice to a man dressed all in red who gives things away for free.

Like Santa Claus, if you are party to this imperial destruction of Thanksgiving, you are a communist. Pure and simple. Stop it, you anti-American villains.