If you haven’t noticed, Rocky is about to make Rocky 95.

It’s amazing. The first time I saw Rocky, I saw it with my Grandma Frankie.

We saw it during my Christmas vacation. I begged and pleaded and convinced her that we needed to go see a boxing movie. My grandmother was, well, let’s just say, a Gemini woman.

Everything she did had to be done with perfection.

Everything she did had to be researched. My grandmother would have loved the Internet. The Internet probably would have been the greatest thing she ever experienced, because she’d be able to read the New York Times online. Along with every other great newspaper.

We were talking and I said, “Grandma I really want to see Rocky.” She said, let me read the reviews.

I was 12, I didn’t know what reviews were. I just wanted to go see two people beat each other up and watch a good movie.

I remember seeing her living room in Greenwich Village. 35 East Ninth Street. It was a beautiful, pre-war building.

I remember sitting there on the sofa. It was always a little too warm in there during winter months. I think most New York City apartments were always a little too warm because the heat just poured out and you would sit there feeling a little bit dizzy.

My grandmother picked up the New York Times and I remember the way she did it. She put her reading glasses on. She would always have a little Exacto knife by her side to clip out articles she wanted to collect.

She looked at me and she raised her eyebrows as she always did, and she said “hum hum hum.”

My grandmother, whenever she was thinking, would always say hum hum hum. Three times. She’d leave you in suspense. This woman was always so great at creating suspense over the littlest things.

She said, “we can see it, it’s around the corner, it got great reviews in the New York Times.”

These days my grandmother would have gotten reviews from everywhere. She would have loved ‘Rotten Tomatoes’. She would love to be able to read every single critic.

I remember walking hand in hand with my grandmother to go see Rocky. That was 1976. 39 years later, we’re still watching Rocky movies.

39 years later, Sylvester Stallone is still doing Rocky movies.

Coming out this holiday season is Creed.

Creed is the son of the original Apollo Creed. I guess he’s just called Creed.

The actor playing Creed happens to be a great actor. I met him one time sitting in business class on the American Airlines flight from JFK to LAX.

We had a three hour delay and we basically shot the shit in the departure lounge.

At that time, he was on Friday Night Lights. All I knew was that he was a pretty damn good actor and a good kid. He was also in a great movie called Fruitvale Station.

So what do 39 years of Rocky and Creed have to do with Thanksgiving?

Well, Thanksgiving night is the night that a majority of women get the Apollo Creed / Rocky Balboa knockout punch from their friends and family.

Grandma, maybe not grandma Frankie, but their version of Grandma Frankie, will say, “so, Jane, you showed up at another Thanksgiving holiday alone. When am I going to get grandchildren?”

Boom! Boom!

A left and a right. A left from Creed, a right from Rocky Balboa.

Jane feels virtually beaten up right now.

Her mother looks at her and says, “whatever happened to that nice boy you were dating?”

Boom! Another hit.

That nice boy turned out to be an asshole. Jane is feeling even worse than before. She’s getting beaten up by her mother now.

Her father rolls his eyes. He just thinks his daughter is wasting her life.  thanksgiv-day

The sister, who was recently married and is looking all beautiful, announces that she is having a baby.

Boom!

Another punch from Rocky Balboa and another punch from Apollo Creed.

This woman is now feeling all the holiday cheer, and Thanksgiving is just the beginning.

Thanksgiving is round one of this Rocky Balboa, Apollo Creed movie. Uncles, aunts, grandmothers. Punches are thrown all over the place. But the punches are not fists, they’re jabs. Jabs from a family that is unhappy that their loving beautiful daughter, niece, granddaughter, is not in love.

She goes home from Thanksgiving dinner feeling emotionally beaten up. Like she went 12 rounds with Grandma Creed and Grandpa Balboa.

And so begins the vulnerable season.

It’s the season of women feeling more vulnerable than ever before because you know what? This is programming from the past.

We feel it. We don’t like the way it feels when our grandmother or grandfather or mother is disappointed in us. We start taking inventory of all the people we’ve dated. And we think that maybe there was someone who slipped through the cracks.

Maybe I won’t be alone.

I’ve got Christmas dinner to make up for everything. I still have a chance to bring a man with me.

I certainly don’t want to get punched in the face by Creed or Balboa when everybody else is doing the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 countdown on New Year’s Eve.

Jane is doing the cheer. She thinks she’s got a man she’s going to bring with her. She’s going to be able to make a come back with Grandma Balboa and Grandpa Creed.

This is the season when women are the most vulnerable. The holidays come, the diamond commercials are playing full blast. The champagne commercials.

The world is full of holiday cheer, parties, big events. People are looking down and depressed if they are all alone.

It’s not the season you want to be alone. This is the season to be in love.

So you all want a Lexus with a big bow around it or a Mercedes Benz in your driveway?

Gentlemen, start your fucking motors. Because this is the most vulnerable time of the year and women are willing to give a chance.

For all of you who met somebody earlier in the year, but they slipped through the cracks, give them an opportunity.

Give them a little ringy ding ding.