Have you ever wondered where your holiday traditions come from? I think we should make sure our children know the REAL reason for our holidays...

In a village not so long ago (maybe the 1960s) and not very far away (somewhere around Cleveland) there was a brave adventurer who decided to buck the centuries of oppression by cruel dinosaur overlords. Lacking true tools with which to fight, he engendered a cunning way to turn the dinosaurs into fossils using only eggnog and holly branches, thus leaving the Great Pumpkin Holiday in peace and theoretically guaranteeing the sheeplike populace a full month of stress-free retail shopping between the Festival of Halloween and Jewish Guy's Birthday.

Amidst the swirling autumn leaves, St. Nicholas of Cleveland stopped off at a restaurant to give Arlo Guthrie some weed (thus inspiring the 17-minute opus "Alice's Restaurant" in his honor) before going off to do battle with the dinosaur overloads. The cruelest and meanest of them all, the dreaded fanged Turkeysaurus giganticus, were known for their amazing ninja fighting skills.

Faced with poor surroundings (hello, Ohio?) and an encroaching tide of eggnog, the last few remaining Turkeysaurus giganticii retaliated with only the weapons they had on hand. They stitched projectiles out of skin left over from the wild boar they had devoured earlier in the day, threw thorn-studded corncobs, and set off sweet potato bombs.

After destroying the last army, St. Nicholas of Cleveland placed the head of the defeated Turkeysaurus general on a pike and marched it down a town square the villagers built in his honor. In the center of the square he roasted the general on a pike, ripping out the wishbone to prove that humankind would be oppressed no more.

Here endeth the history lesson.