With semesters, the conversation focuses on having a prescribed release from classes. That release could be the last full week of November, which includes Thanksgiving.

Why Thanksgiving? By the end of November the weather has turned gloomy and cold. There is a very good chance there might be ice and snow, and if it hasn’t occurred, it definitely will be upon us soon.

Not only has the weather turned its back on us by then, but also the long period between the beginning of school has stretched so tight that everyone has gone beyond the point of no return. Yes, we can rest during the four-day weekend of Thanksgiving, but it really isn’t enough so late in the season.

Perhaps it is time for the powers that be (and that is meant to address powers well beyond the university — all the way to the White House) to look with a careful eye and make some logical decisions about planning holidays.

Why do we need to have a lengthy holiday that occurs so close to the end of the normal semester and so close to the Christmas holidays? Would it not be more logical to place Thanksgiving during the third week of October, a whole month before the current date?

This would give the university a wonderful seven-week run with a break and then seven weeks to the end of the semester. It also would provide a proper break for K-12 students.

Think what it also would do for the economy of the state. During a normal year, this new Thanksgiving date would coincide with the fall colors and allow people to travel about the state with children in tow, looking at the wonders of nature without having to worry about missing school.

Now for a little history of this misplaced holiday. Most of us can close our eyes and see the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony, walking their way to dinner with the indigenous Native Americans in the year 1621 — a year after half of their fellow colonists succumbed to the weather and disease.

The picture we see is happy Pilgrims, and Native Americans, roasting animals and celebrating Thanksgiving. No date is attached. And, in 1777, the Continental Congress ruled that all colonies would have a day of Thanksgiving.

It was not until Sarah Josepha Hale caught the eye of President Abraham Lincoln with a series of editorials in 1863 that the last Thursday of November then officially became Thanksgiving Day.

Why did anybody want a day of Thanksgiving anyway? The Pilgrims were thankful that no more of their colony had dropped dead. Hale and Lincoln wanted people to be thankful for the U.S. and not want separation.

But now the focus has changed a bit. The Detroit Lions have become synonymous with a football game on Thanksgiving since 1934. Macy’s has had a Thanksgiving parade since 1924 to celebrate not Thanksgiving, but the official start to the holiday shopping season. I think we can get rid of both of those activities and lose absolutely nothing.

Now is the time to push for a readjustment of our calendar, give Congress something relaxing to think about and propose a really useful change for the American public.

Let’s make Thanksgiving 2010 — or more likely 2011 — coincide with a proper Fall Break, a worthwhile Thanksgiving during proper weather and a means to generate much needed tourist dollars for Michigan.

All we need is legislation that changes the date of Thanksgiving and the administrators at MSU can give us all a fall break.

Craig Gunn is a State News guest columnist. Reach him at gunn@egr.msu.edu.