Ahh ... the holidays!

After stuffing themselves with turkey, dressing and pumpkin pie, many Americans will venture forth at midnight to stand in long lines as they wait with bated breath for shopping malls across the US to open their doors and officially usher in the 2009 Christmas shopping season.

The great deals awaiting these patient troubadours are as thrilling for them as being the very first shopper to grab that much-sought-after holiday gift that sons, daughters, nieces and nephews will cherish for 15 whole minutes before going to play with the box it came in.

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Thanksgiving is a time to put politics aside and be joyful for the things we have and the people we love.

Republicans and Democrats; blacks and whites; Jews, Christians, Muslims and Native Americans -- Thanksgiving is not bound to any religion or ethnicity. It is a time to foster friendship, break bread and try to appreciate our differences as Americans, rather than resent them.

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An invitation to the president's first state dinner is one of the highest honors a US citizen can receive, and President Barack Obama's choice of guests made it clear that although the meal was officially in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, it was unofficially in honor of the folks who got him elected.

For example, Gen. Colin Powell, who offered his endorsement to the president in the waning days of the 2008 presidential campaign made an appearance, along with CBS Anchor Katie Couric, whose hit job on former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin marginalized one of the president's fiercest political foes.

The lack of conservative -- or even Republican representation at the dinner (Bobby Jindal and his wife were one of only two Republicans invited, and Jindal only received an invitation because he is the son of Indian immigrants) -- made it clear to just about every person on earth, with the possible exception of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari (who also was not invited), that this wasn't so much a "state" dinner as it was a "payback" dinner.

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Congressman Joe Pitts is angry.

Pitts, one of two Republicans to successfully attach an abortion amendment to the House version of the health care reform package, is seething over changes Democratic leaders in the Senate have made to the amendment's language.

"I've only had a cursory look, but basically ... it's like the Capps amendment that we had in the House version, the Pelosi bill," he tells me on the eve of tonight's Senate vote to move the legislation to the floor for debate. "It's nothing but an accounting mechanism. It still provides that public funds will subsidize abortions."

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