Ho-oh, Symbol of Thanksgiving & Her Pokemon Team

With the success of my Halloween Pokemon team article and how much fun I had building that team I wanted to continue to the next holiday, Thanksgiving.

I have always been so-so on Thanksgiving, I love spending the day with my family but do find my attention going into Halloween before it and Christmas after it. This along with the fact that I have worked retail for over ten years and Black Friday being the next day have spoiled Thanksgiving a bit for me.

I am by no means a Thanksgiving grinch and wanted to honor the holiday the same way I did Halloween and will with Christmas next. It was tricky but I do feel I have made a team that does reflect the holiday.

As always, before we get into the article I do have some disclaimers:

1. This team is meant to be an in-game team and not designed to be competitively viable.
2. I normally do not use legendaries or mythical Pokemon on teams but will use Ho-oh and no others on this team.
3. To help use Pokemon from as many different generations I have limited my selections to a maximum of one per generation.
4. This list will be the Pokemon on the team only, no moves, natures, abilities or items will be mentioned.
5. This list is meant to be a theme with my selections being based on said theme.

Also before we get into the Thanksgiving team I did make a Halloween-themed team:

I will not go into details about my Halloween team build, please click the link below to read the full article.

Darkrai, Spirit of Halloween & His Pokemon Team

Now that is out of the way let's get to the Thanksgiving team!

The first Pokemon on the Thanksgiving team is one I have recently come to love, Excadrill. I didn't use Excadrill until I got into Pokemon Go where I caught and evolved a 3-Star Drillbur early in my playing of Go. I nicknamed it Ares after the Greek god of war due to its coloring resembling blood and its sharp claws.

To me, Excadrill is the perfect fit for the farmer that cultivates a crop and harvests it. Its typing was ideal to help mitigate the Rock-type weakness that Ho-oh has which is also beneficial for the team.

Next is a variant of one of my favorite Pokemon and the appliance that most Thanksgiving festivities center around, Rotom Heat. I will be honest, I was never a fan of the Rotom appliances. I love the Ghost-type and their secondary types remove this, not cool! Interesting gimmick though.

Many people spend the day cooking their Thanksgiving meals so when I started the team I knew I had to include Rotom Heat on the team despite my dislike for it.

When I built my Halloween-themed team I used a core of Ghost-type Pokemon because that fit the Halloween theme. With Thanksgiving it isn't possible to do the same, traditions vary between families with even staples for some families being different for others. So I decided to go a different route, this team instead has a core of Pokemon that share the Thick Fat ability.

The first Pokemon I chose with the Thick Fat ability is Snorlax, a Pokemon that gorges itself before sleeping for extended periods of time. Sounds a bit like Thanksgiving to me!

The second Thick Fat Pokemon is Grumpig whose pre-evolution, Spoink, I have always adored and found to be incredibly cute despite its horrific lore.

Many of you have already guessed the second reason why I selected Grumpig for the team and yes, it is because ham is a Thanksgiving staple. This along with the Thick Fat ability make Grumpig a win-win for the team!

Rounding out the Thick Fat core of the team and the Pokemon I have to use is Appletun. I played through Pokemon Sword and completely missed Appletun and its pre-evolution until it was pointed out to me by my ex who also needed it for his Pokedex.

While I tried to incorporate as many Thanksgiving main dishes as I could, I knew a dessert would have to make the list, or I would get angry letters. What better dessert to include than some apple pie?

Now we reach the symbol of Thanksgiving in our world and the legendary Pokemon that the Pokemon World would tie in with the holiday, Ho-oh. When I made my Halloween team based around Darkrai I knew I would have to do the same for each of these lists and Ho-oh was the first in line for the Thanksgiving team's legendary leader.

A giant bird for a holiday we associate with a large bird? Check. A Pokemon that brings eternal happiness making it the perfect Pokemon for families to honor together? Double-check.

And I am sure many will jokingly comment on this article without reading it and insinuate I am suggesting we eat Ho-oh. We can chuckle at them together for commenting on something they did not read.