It is Thanksgiving morning and as one might expect, the airwaves and internet are filled with people giving thanks for this and that. It is all very heartfelt, sometimes profound and just so giving.

I get it, that is the intent of this uniquely American holiday.

(Yes, I know the Canadians have their own Thanksgiving–but I suspect that is for the same reason that Canadian radio stations have some rule that they have to play a certain percentage of music by Canadian artists. Otherwise there would be no Canadian culture whatsoever and no musical careers for Anne Murray, Gordon Lightfoot and The Guess Who.)

My point is–that the best part of Thanksgiving isn’t all the mushy, do-gooder crap that will be spooned out of everyone today like so much lumpy brown gravy out of the precious china “gravy boat” that makes its appearance one each year.

It also won’t be the excessive amount of food that most people will consume in huge quantities. (Even the people who don’t get a lot of food (or anything else) on every other day, through the efforts of quite well-intentioned folks, typically get a plate laden with food this one day of the year. No word on how it is supposed to last them the entire year.)

I’m not looking to rain on anyone’s turkey day, because it is a great day and a lot of people–far better than I–do amazing things to help their fellow man on this day.

This is why they will get into heaven, and I very likely will not.

But I still contend the best part of today isn’t something you might find on a Hallmark Card, or in a newspaper editorial, or even in a random blog post on the internet.

Because today comes down to just one thing.

It’s all about the smell, people.

Consider that from the moment you wake up on Thanksgiving morning, the one sense that is usually overwhelmed is your olfactory system. From the turkey that is cooking in an oven for hours on end, to the stuffing, to the potatoes of every kind, to the vegetables, to the cranberry in its many mutated forms, to the baked goods of every flavor.

To every other kind of edible thing that will be made today.

Why do you think we consume so much food on this one day? It is because we are bombarded by stimuli for the most powerful sense we have.

I mean if walking by a Krispy Kreme shop while they are making fresh glazed donuts can force almost anyone to go inside and inhale a couple of those wonderful, sugary rings of orgasmic bliss–regardless of whether the last time they ate might have been five hours or five minutes prior–then my friends, we don’t stand a chance on Thanksgiving.

It’s also a memory thing.

Your sense of smell is very connected to memory. We all learn about the meaning of Thanksgiving at an early age. Everyone gets the grade school indoctrination into the legend of the pilgrims and the indians (before casino gambling restored the balance of power). But it doesn’t take a child very long to associate the newly discovered smells with the apparently steroid laden fowl cooking forever that isn’t quite chicken and apparently can only be consumed once each year.

There is also the memory of football, either played in the yard or watched somewhere. Whether the teams were professional, from some school or just splitting up those who were willing to risk an almost certain trip to the emergency room after an errant fumble and subsequent piling on–the game is just a cheap diversion to keep us occupied while the endless hours of cooking continue to wind down.

Of course at some point, the cooking is complete, the table is set and everyone proceeds to stuff themselves more than the bird that was prepared for consumption. With only a brief blessing to slow down the proceeding, plates overflowing with food are quickly consumed, sometimes reloaded, and before anyone can really notice–the feast is done.

Then there are the endless hours of complaining about how much each person has eaten, like they were forced to do so by some unseen CIA interrogation specialist just returned from Gitmo. Everyone is morbidly obese for at least an hour or two, as they rate the meal just consumed as the best ever and certainly much better than last year’s.

And before you know it, the day of thanks is done. It’s now Friday and the annual sprint to finish the Christmas shopping season begins with the starting gun known as “Black Friday.”

But if you stop and actually smell the…well, everything but the roses perhaps–on this Thanksgiving day, you’ll figure out that it really is the amazing tease to our noses that makes today something special.

And yes, it is certainly a day worth being thankful for. Each and every year.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.