Thanksgiving doesn’t have its own atmospheric buildup like Halloween and Christmas do. There are decorations and attire that are synonymous with them, whether it’s costumes or ugly sweaters or holiday hats. But Thanksgiving doesn’t have any of that. It just has formal dinner attire, which happens several times during the course of the year, depending on how fancy you are.
But another reason that Thanksgiving is at a disadvantage when it comes to a unique atmosphere is that it doesn’t have a soundtrack.
Christmas music is the undisputed champion of holiday tunes, whether you like the songs or not. From secular to religious to parody, Christmas music is unmistakable and sets the mood for the season.
Halloween music is trickier to find, but once you go digging there are plenty of gems to be uncovered. Even ambient “spooky sounds of Halloween” albums that consists of creaking doors and sinister laughter help set the mood for the spooky season.
Thanksgiving has… dinner music. Which can be anything from any genre from any time of the year. It’s just whatever you like to play during a fancy dinner gathering. Classical music and jazz are my music of choice for celebratory dinners, but I wouldn’t call them “Thanksgiving songs.”
Unlike Halloween, curating a Thanksgiving playlist has proven to be especially challenging.
Weird Al Yankovic has a superb catalog of songs about food, but folks’ opinion of “Eat It” may differ widely as a dinner song. “Peaches” by the Presidents of the United States of America is certainly a catchy tune, but listening to a song about a specific fruit while eating your main course may be off-putting. The excellent jazz song “Collard Greens & Black-Eyed Peas” is a great choice for Thanksgiving dinner music, but as an instrumental piece you wouldn’t know it was about food unless you were aware of it beforehand. “I Like Food” by The Descendants is a roll of the dice at best.
Thanksgiving needs its own sound, but no one has truly stepped up to the plate to champion this cause (as far as I am aware). It might be an impossible challenge, given the wide variety of taste in dinner music, but it’s one I’m nonetheless trying to conquer.