A Post-Mortem For Thanksgiving
Monday, November 26, 2007 Filed in: Events
The day is done. Thanksgiving and its associated
Black Friday are history. What kind of a holiday
weekend is beget by Thanksgiving?
Three words. Food. Shopping. Football. Not necessarily in that order.
Thanksgiving marks the start of the holiday shopping season, the time of year when most retail merchants claim to go from being in the red (unprofitable) to being in the black (profitable). Based on the discounts offered during the holidays I wonder about the latter and the truthfulness of the former.
Be that as it may, Thanksgiving is a wonderful four day weekend for nearly everyone except those who work in retail. Food and family and football are good traditions for Thursday. There's shopping and more football on Friday. Still more shopping and more football on Saturday and Sunday.
What else could anyone want?
Oh, yeah. Giving thanks. Not that there ever was, but there doesn't appear to be much giving of thanks on Thanksgiving. There's family. Turkey. Pumpkin pie. And a very thick, Sunday-like newspaper full of advertisements, inserts, circulars, flyers, and a few thousand options to help readers find new ways to be departed from their money.
Giving thanks seems more like an afterthought.
Should giving thanks be the starting gun which signifies the holiday and the start of the Christmas shopping season? Or, should it be a reflective moment on the goodness of life, liberty, and personal pursuits? Or, something else? In reality, Thanksgiving is more of the former, and much less of the latter.
In fact, holidays in general are less about their meaning and more about shopping and time off from work or school. Labor Day? What's that all about? Independence Day? Please. It's called "the 4th." New Year's Day is the time required to sleep off New Year's Eve which is more a celebration of the repeal of prohibition than anything else.
Except for those poor souls who can't get off work on a holiday weekend, what do we look forward to in a holiday? No work. No school. Go places. Do things. Spend money. Sleep late.
Not necessarily in that order.
Three words. Food. Shopping. Football. Not necessarily in that order.
Thanksgiving marks the start of the holiday shopping season, the time of year when most retail merchants claim to go from being in the red (unprofitable) to being in the black (profitable). Based on the discounts offered during the holidays I wonder about the latter and the truthfulness of the former.
Be that as it may, Thanksgiving is a wonderful four day weekend for nearly everyone except those who work in retail. Food and family and football are good traditions for Thursday. There's shopping and more football on Friday. Still more shopping and more football on Saturday and Sunday.
What else could anyone want?
Oh, yeah. Giving thanks. Not that there ever was, but there doesn't appear to be much giving of thanks on Thanksgiving. There's family. Turkey. Pumpkin pie. And a very thick, Sunday-like newspaper full of advertisements, inserts, circulars, flyers, and a few thousand options to help readers find new ways to be departed from their money.
Giving thanks seems more like an afterthought.
Should giving thanks be the starting gun which signifies the holiday and the start of the Christmas shopping season? Or, should it be a reflective moment on the goodness of life, liberty, and personal pursuits? Or, something else? In reality, Thanksgiving is more of the former, and much less of the latter.
In fact, holidays in general are less about their meaning and more about shopping and time off from work or school. Labor Day? What's that all about? Independence Day? Please. It's called "the 4th." New Year's Day is the time required to sleep off New Year's Eve which is more a celebration of the repeal of prohibition than anything else.
Except for those poor souls who can't get off work on a holiday weekend, what do we look forward to in a holiday? No work. No school. Go places. Do things. Spend money. Sleep late.
Not necessarily in that order.
