Respect The Bird movement aims to preserve Thanksgiving

Geno Bernardo has fond memories of the Thanksgivings of his childhood.

"I love Thanksgiving," said Bernardo, executive chef of Nove Italiano at the Palms. "My great-grandfather was always big into this holiday for our family. He would make my great-grandmother cook, and he would go hunt for mushrooms.

"We would literally start eating about 11 o'clock, when all the salume were out. It was just one long, great day. Family would come and go."

It wasn't a traditional American Thanksgiving in terms of the menu, Bernardo noted, but it was in terms of the dynamics: "It was more about the family."

Julie McCuiston of Las Vegas also has fond memories of Thanksgiving, "through the years, just gathering with family and friends."

But both say that these days, something is being missed.

"Definitely, Thanksgiving is bypassed," Bernardo said.

"That's why I signed on," McCuiston said.

Signed on? No, not to Occupy Wall Street, but to a different kind of grass-roots campaign. McCuiston is the official Las Vegas Respect the Bird ambassador, representing a fledgling movement that got its start last year.

Doug Matthews of Mendham, N.J., is recognized by Respect the Bird as the founder of the movement, which was born on his blog for the AllRecipes.com community. He remembered, last November, walking downstairs in the middle of the workday at his job at an insurance company in New York City.

"I went into CVS and it was Christmas everywhere," Matthews said. "The Halloween candy hadn't even been discounted yet. They had rows of Christmas stuff. I was tired of hearing Christmas music already.

"I walked back to my desk, sat down and just started writing."

And, it seems, tapped right into the zeitgeist.

"The response was incredible," Matthews said. "I never expected it to take off the way that it did. I got comment after comment after comment. People were letting me know they were feeling the same way I did."

"People were so passionate about this," said Stephanie Robinett, communications director for AllRecipes.com, which claims 25 million regular users. "It really resonated."

What they're upset about, she said, is not only the tendency for the 'tis-the-season period to last from Nov. 1 right into the new year, but of the increasing incursion of Black Friday into Thanksgiving Day. Instead of just starting their big annual sales on the day after Thanksgiving, she said, more and more companies are beginning their sales on the holiday itself.

"First of all, the employees have to work those days," she said. "People are leaving dinner early to go get the Black Friday sales."

Some cynics, she said, are even saying Black Friday is morphing into Black Thursday -- definitely a black spot for Thanksgiving.

Matthews' blog post, Robinett said, was No. 1 on AllRecipes.com until midway through December.

"We actually pulled it down," she said, "because there were great Christmas blogs."

The official movement and its website -- www.RespectTheBird.com -- was born. And, in this era of social media, of course there's a Facebook page and a Twitter feed.

But they all conceded the sentiment isn't a new one. Robinett said the hashtag #savethanksgiving, which she said started with Ryan Seacrest, has multiplied into thousands of posts.

"The movement has kind of grown," Robinett said. "There are people who are really definitely with this concept, even if they've never heard of Respect the Bird."

One of which is a major retailer.

"The tradition is not new for us," said John Bailey, a spokesman for Nordstrom, which has a store at Fashion Show mall. "As a company, we like to celebrate each holiday on its own, before moving on to the next one."

For years, Nordstrom has had its half-yearly sale for women and kids in early to mid-November. After that ends, store windows are covered as holiday displays are prepared, and there's a company statement on the window covering, Bailey said.

But this year, that message has gone viral. One version circulating online is actually from Thanksgiving 2008. It says:

"We (Nordstrom) won't be decking our halls until Friday, Nov. 27. Why? Well, we just like the idea of celebrating one holiday at a time. From our family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving."

Bailey said that has been the policy as far back as he can remember.

"We have heard over the years from customers that they appreciate the fact that we wait to unveil our holiday decorations until after Thanksgiving," he said.

Early shoppers may find Christmas-themed merchandise in Nordstrom stores before Thanksgiving, he added, but the halls will not be decked with boughs of holly or anything else.

McCuiston said she appreciates the noncommercial aspect of Thanksgiving, the simplicity of the holiday.

"The expectation is just to get together with people you like or love, or adopt an 'orphan' for the day," she said. "We always end up with extras at our table, especially in Las Vegas, where there are so many transplants."

She noted that her neighborhood has a large number of Jewish residents.

"This is the holiday where we really do come together," she said. "It's the common holiday that we can all share. You can bring religion to it, but you don't have to bring religion to it. It's the commonality of being thankful and being grateful for being here in America."

Rabbi Sanford Akselrad, of Congregation Ner Tamid in Henderson, said Thanksgiving is a contemplative time.

"Despite hard economic times, people still find Thanksgiving an important holiday to pause and feel grateful for what they have," he said.

"I think one thing that gets us out of ourselves is by giving to others," he added. "It doesn't have to be the giving of a physical gift, but the giving of our time -- how we treat other people, especially on that day. Making amends to relationships that have been sullied.

"It's so easy when we look at the news and we look at our own lives to lose sight of the basic core values of what made not only our nation strong but also our families strong -- love and respect for family members, co-workers and even the strangers in our midst. They shouldn't be invisible. We're called upon as a society to reach out and give of our time and make a more living and inclusive society."

Matthews is an unabashed fan of the holiday.

"For us growing up, Thanksgiving was a time when we would go to my grandmother's house and would see my aunt and uncle and only cousin and that was really the only time of the year I would see them," he said. "Thanksgiving was really important to all of us."

In his encounters since launching Respect the Bird, Matthews said, "nobody has disagreed with me. People have said they're going to take advantage of Black Friday deals."

But wait -- isn't Black Friday officially after Thanksgiving?

Not to Matthews, who's clearly hard- core.

"It is, but it's the Thanksgiving weekend," he said. "To me, Thanksgiving is Wednesday after work, until you walk back into the office on Monday."

Contact reporter Heidi Knapp Rinella at
hrinella@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0474.