The origins of the date on which we celebrate Sucksgiving is of recent vintage. On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed by an assassin's bullet in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. With its popular, young President stolen from it in what remains the most public of all American assassinations, the United States suffered a severe blow to its

In short, it sucked.

Meanwhile, over 4600 miles away in Oxford, England, another great man left this mortal coil. C.S. Lewis, theologian and author of such works as Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and, perhaps most famously, the Chronicles of Narnia series, passed away in his bedroom in Oxford, England, just a week shy of his 65th birthday.

This also sucked.

Whereas normally the passing of a man of Lewis's stature and renown would have garnered a fair degree of public acknowledgment and reflection, his death was instead greatly overshadowed by the extensive media coverage of the assassination of the American President. Much of the public would not become aware of Lewis's death until several days later.

That, too, sucked.

The patron saint of Sucksgiving is Rodney Dangerfield, born Jacob Cohen on November 22, 1921. An American actor and comedian, Dangerfield's comedy act was often built upon the theme of how things sucked. In addition to his date of birth, he is the patron saint of this holiday because, as he so often said himself, he never got any respect.

And that sucked.

The celebration of Sucksgiving is not unlike that of Thanksgiving, in that it centers around a meal. There is, however, one essential difference: the food must suck. Children's frozen dinners and blue Jell-O are particular favorites, and you can wash them down with a can of Moxie. The traditional core dish of the Sucksgiving dinner is, naturally, succotash. After eating, each attendee at the Sucksgiving table names off all the things in their own lives that have sucked in the previous year. It is a time of catharsis and spiritual cleansing, an outlet for all of life's various aggravations and miseries.

And when all have finished, the remaining food is thrown away, and the Sucksgiving attendees go get something good to eat.