Gobble, gobble. Thanksgiving arrives Thursday, but our turkey holiday is in danger of being devoured by Christmas. Everywhere I go, Thanksgiving is overshadowed by the ghost of Christmas future.   Festive Christmas wreaths were on sale at my local grocery store two weeks ago. This year, Marshall Field’s, whoops, Macy’s, windows, which traditionally appear around Thanksgiving, popped up in early November. Cheesy Christmas music is in the air, it seems, at every retail establishment. The lobby of my condo building was decorated with lights and Christmas trees two weeks ago. My Facebook friends are showing off their Christmas trees, already installed in the living room, and frenzied Black Friday shopping offers have been jamming my inbox for weeks.    Enough already!  It’s the phenomenon known as “Christmas creep.” Christmas creep is not “an overbearing uncle,” Merriam-Webster says. (I had one of those who came around for the holidays, but that’s another story.) The online dictionary defines “Christmas creep” as “the gradual lengthening of the Christmas season, with ever earlier displays of lights, wreaths, and decorated trees, insistent advertisements of holiday sales for consumerist profiteering, and the familiar sound of songs that everybody knows but which should never be heard in public places during the month of October.” The pressure to ramp up holiday shopping has become so intense that some retailers have dubbed the season “Black October.” It’s the Grinch that stole Thanksgiving. Turkey Day has been swallowed up in the rush to get to Dec. 25. This time should be a moment for family and friends to gather, reflect and pay homage to the goodness the year has brought. It is not the time to scramble around looking for cheap deals.  In the good old days, families would bring the kids downtown on Thanksgiving Day to catch the decorated windows before the descent of the season. Now the windows hang around for weeks, too long, no longer special and fleeting. Now Christmastime lasts so long that the displays practically turn yellow. If I had brought one of those wreaths home weeks ago, the dried-out pine needles would be piling up at my door by now.  Call me a curmudgeon. I am here to say: Let’s appreciate Thanksgiving in its own right. It should not have to compete with Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the December festivities to come. Thanksgiving must be restored to its place of honor in the pantheon of holidays. Don’t let Christmas bleed into Thanksgiving. Let it breathe.   Let us take time to smell the sweet potatoes. Let the bouquet of mashed potatoes, gravy and stuffing waft their way through the house. In these troubled times, we need to linger over a feast that is meant to be savored, with piquant aromas.  In my book, the catalogue of tales that spring from Thanksgiving easily rival those of Christmas. I’ll take a turkey drumstick over plum pudding anytime.   My husband immensely loves the smells emanating from the kitchen. He shares memories of how his mother’s recipes would even triumph over the men’s natural propensity to watch football on Thanksgiving. They would all eat themselves silly, then fall asleep in front of the TV, missing all the gridiron action.  At our abode, we have been hosting a Thanksgiving potluck feast for decades, with 25 or so family members and friends. Potluck, of course, means we don’t have to cook. That’s a very good thing — because we can’t. Our guests tote over all manner of treats, from the traditional to wacky. The stuffing is a sensation with unlimited varieties. The side dishes, key and admirable, range from noodle casseroles to sliced rutabaga, to green beans with toasted almond slivers. Sushi makes an appearance every year, and it’s the first thing to disappear.   The collard greens with ham hocks and macaroni and cheese are a close second. Those were my dear mother’s specialties. She is no longer with us, and now those dishes are even closer to my heart.  This year we are entrusting those precious dishes to two regular denizens of our confabs. That’s pressure, but I’m sure they will perform admirably.  Christmas isn’t going anywhere. It can wait.  Before we descend into the incessant commercialism of the season, let’s pause to give thanks.  In the meantime, readers, I would love to hear what you love about Thanksgiving. Enjoy!  Laura Washington is a political commentator and longtime Chicago journalist. Her columns appear in the Tribune each Wednesday. Write to her at [email protected]. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email [email protected].