Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. It was the one holiday that had no agenda
other than getting together with family and close friends and sharing. Literally remembering to be thankful for what
we have.
So it’s with true and deep sadness that I reflect on my
favorite holiday being corrupted by commercialism. They got to Halloween, the Easter Bunny, and
of course Santa, and now they’ve gotten to Thanksgiving too, henceforth known
as Black Friday Eve.
My daughter is a student at NYU Tisch and was causally
speaking with a student from the Netherlands on her way to the train on
Wednesday to come home for Thanksgiving. This is how their conversation went:
Him: “So you’re going
home for Thanksgiving. Where do you go
for Black Friday?”
Her: “We don’t go out
on Black Friday. You couldn’t pay me to
go near a mall on Black Friday.”
Him: “Really? I can’t wait!
The pushing, the shoving, the grabbing at bargains. It looks so exciting! This will be my first
one, I can’t wait!”
Her: “Umm, that’s not
what we’re celebrating. Thanksgiving is
about giving thanks for what we have, not planning to get what we don’t have
yet.”
Him, with a pitying look:
“You have to get out there on Friday!
Thanksgiving is for the old, Black Friday is for the young. Happy Black Friday!”
And with a nod to Kurt Vonnegut…and so it goes.
It seems that I’m becoming aware of this phenomenon of
Thanksgiving Eve at about the same time as the rest of the masses. This story from CNN chronicles the rise of
Black Friday: http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/18/opinion/greene-black-friday/index.html?iid=article_sidebar
I saw another short news story that said this Black Friday
broke all kinds of records.
My sister, my anecdotal direct connection to mainstream
America, was out there in the mix, but she didn’t get up uber early, she just
headed to the big boxes around 11 a.m. and reported back that yes, the lines
were crazy long, yes there were great deals, yes, the deals weren’t as great as
the stores touted, e.g., “They say I saved $300. I know that’s not right. The stuff should have cost about $250. And I spent $180. So I saved $70. Which is still great. And here’s all the stuff I got,” and like a
child rattling off to another what Santa left under the tree, she detailed all
the buys she got. She ended with, “It
was fun. I had fun!” I love my sister’s joie
de vivre.
So I will continue to host Thanksgiving at my home each year,
no matter how big or how small the gathering.
And I will continue to quietly be thankful for all the good things my
life has brought me and I will continue to wish the best for mankind. I will be hopeful on Black Friday Eve,
despite the frenzied preparation all around me for National Shopping Day, the
celebration of grabby madness and over the top commercialism gone wild.
I think I will be in the minority, but so what else is new?
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