Learn how you can join the fight to take back Thanksgiving Week!
Allrecipes.com wants you to Respect the Bird this November instead of shopping for Black Friday deals. Last November, Allrecipes’ community member Doug Matthews wrote a blog post reminding people Thanksgiving deserves to be more than an afterthought among our national holidays…enough already of the pre-Christmas shopping frenzy! The post was titled Respect the Bird. Taking a cue from Doug’s blog post, Allrecipes aims to boost this issue into national awareness. After all, Thanksgiving is a cherished holiday that is about being thankful for what you have instead of focusing on what you want/don’t have.
A national survey from Allrecipes found 82 percent of home cooks think Christmas is marketed too early and that the Thanksgiving holiday gets too little attention as a result. Moreover, 42 percent admit being frustrated by Christmas shopping sales that begin before Thanksgiving while 39 percent just try to ignore it.
Allrecipes has created a dedicated site, www.RespectTheBird.com, where Thanksgiving enthusiasts can rally support for the movement. Here, consumers can take the Respect the Bird Pledge, a promise to fully enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday and not begin shopping for the December holidays until after November 24, and get recipes and tips for their Thanksgiving festivities. The site and complementary social media channels (Respect the Bird Facebook community and Respect the Bird on Twitter – @RespectTheBird) will make it easy to spread the movement among friends and family.
“Thanksgiving is an amazing holiday and I believe I was speaking for a lot of people when I wrote the blog post on Respect the Bird last year,” said Matthews, leader of the Respect the Bird movement. “I am thrilled that Allrecipes is taking Respect the Bird to a new level with this campaign and I hope it sets a precedence that the holiday be celebrated by sharing thanks and good food with friends and family, not Black Friday shopping!”
“Allrecipes.com thrives on its vibrant user community of more than 25 million passionate home cooks like Doug Matthews,” said Lisa Sharples, President of Allrecipes. “When we saw how our community responded to Doug’s blog, we knew we had to help that community express its appreciation for what we all think is truly the best day of the year.”
Allrecipes hopes that the “Respect the Bird!” campaign will be a grassroots movement that encourages people to savor the true meaning of Thanksgiving and tune out the distractions of Black Friday that have intruded upon Thanksgiving week.