You know, I have noticed in the recent years that Thanksgiving is becoming an irrelevant holiday in consumer America. I went into a simple Walgreens in my neighborhood (one I frequently visited all my life) and there was a point in time were Thanksgiving decorations used to be put up the day immediately after Halloween. This year I went into Walgreens and several other stores that used decorations in the past. None of them had decorations for Thanksgiving and this was a day or two after Halloween. Instead it seems that Christmas and black Friday shit hit the shelves immediately after. Thanksgiving a day to me is not about Indians and pilgrims but in a black family a day to see my family and eat with each other, drink, and be merry. To me it serves as a purpose to gather with my clan and blood and talk and bond. Its sad, but I feel Thanksgiving is being phased out completely. As a new father I am afraid my daughter wont know that excitement that I experienced smelling food throughout my parents house as we cleaned meticulously in preparation for about 30-40ppl to get crammed in my house and congregate. Since I was a child we had a decent number of boys to girls in our family and the whiney girls would stay inside and we boys would go out back in our huge backyard and literally clown for hours. Til the point we had to get chased down to eat. Now however I've heard more about "Black Friday" instead of Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving day at that. People worried about making a sale that truthfully is just a mark down to the lowest pricepoint to were the store actually pays. Yeah sales are created to make us feel like saving. The illusion works but its not real (hard to explain) . So yesterday I decided while I was at work to see how many customers visited our store on Thanksgiving. ( I work at a movie rental store everything's one day rent so its easy to track people systematically if they don't want to tell you) If the customer was a regular and they had Thanksgiving day activity on their account. I simply asked how their T-day was and if they had noticed how places no.longer formally celebrate Thanksgiving day. Out of 10 PEOPLE I heard 6 say that their Thanksgiving day was spent preparing for black friday. They ate dinner but their main focus was on a corporate built holiday that drives us into a zombie like frenzy over slashed down goods. This behavior is insane and I feel I watched it build ridiculously over the past 18 years as a 25 year old. My question is how do you blades feel about this change of Thanksgiving as a simple "large-dinner-before-we-go-mindlessly-spend-a-shitton-of-money-on-things-we-know-will-be-no-good-in-a-year-day"? I feel like the illusion works we lower prices so people can buy love at a decent price because God knows their family will hate them if they can't buy that toy little Cody/Javier/De'angelo wants, because he might grow to an axe murderer over a bad Christmas. I don't get it.
I dont think its got to be that big of a problem yet but it does seem to get worse and worse. But I think you have a bigger impact on your kids than the media does, so if you make it a priority for them to value traditions then it will most likely stick.
I know what you mean its all about $ these days. Its even worse when you hear about people getting trampled to death when the door opens. (you know how you see a shit ton of people waiting in front of the stores before they open). I remember when hat harold and kumar christmas movie came out in the beggining of november wtf is up with that..
i too am dissapointed in the mass amount of people participating in this materialistic holiday. if you can even call it a holiday. more like a nation wide sale. not that i dont like a new tv as much as the next guy, it just seems like people should be doing more productive shit than "shopping"
Honestly, if you want a few nice things then waiting in the lines takes a lot less time than working for all the money for the non-sale price. Add in limited supplies and now we have to get competitive to save ourselves that money. But the timing is definitely bad. It wasn't even the day after thanksgiving this year. It started at 10 on thanksgiving. Kinda ridiculous for anyone who still enjoys good family holidays like thanksgiving
I think the whole Black Friday thing will be dead in a few years. I noticed this year some stores were having it a week earlier [Target] to get the jump on everybody else. I think this trend will continue until it [Black Friday] implodes. Greed has a way of doing that...
i think it is rather ironic that society spends Thanksgiving Thursday saying how thankful they are for all that they have and then spend the next day (or that night now) fighting over a bunch of crap they don't really need.
The day after thanksgiving day in the US. Malls and stores have HUGE sales/bargain prices, known as the official first day of christmas/holiday shopping. Sales start as early as midnight on thanksgiving. People go crazy to get some of the opening sales. It's a common occurrance to hear of at least a few cases of violence and trampling due to the heightened levels of aggression and greed. This is an excellent observation and post. I've noticed the same things. It truly just shows me yet another symptom of the outrageous and careless American excess that is so prevalent nowadays. All we can do is live our lives how we believe is the right way. For me, that means trying to keep my materialism under control. I really need to work on buying locally more than I do. I also try to value the things that you have, but you can't see. The love of my family, boyfriend, and friends, the very comfortable life I live, and the amazing experiences Ive had. I try to keep my life in a state of positive energy and good karma as much as possible in my daily life. Paying it forward as much as possible. Your daughter will still know the idea of family and great food for thanksgiving, as long as you keep that spirit and tradition alive. My parents did a great job of raising me to see through the commercialism, and I don't doubt that you will be able to as well. Great post, like I said.
"This is an excellent observation and post. I've noticed the same things. It truly just shows me yet another symptom of the outrageous and careless American excess that is so prevalent nowadays." a concentrated version shopping madness I agree. I really don't need another piece & feel also very Claus....trophobic! I vote X-mas be changed to Feb 29th. CRAP..........I just can't win. Happy Holidaze!!
Actually lots of retail stores take a loss on there products on black Friday, they aren't selling it at what they bought it at. The reason they mark things so low is to get people in the store so they buy other things as well and that's how the stores profit. But I like black Friday, I have always went shopping with my mom on that day since I was like 7. It's a good bonding experience between me and her since we don't have much in common. We have more bonding on black friday then thanksgiving where we just go to relatives house to eat.
black friday is waiting for good deals and pouncing for amazing deals. this year i got a 42 inch Sharp 1080p HDTV for $163 + 12 hours of my time.
well then you did not actually pay 163 for your TV. 12hrs @ 8 bucks an hour puts you total cost 259, that is if you make 8 an hour if you make more an hour your cost goes up more, lets not forget to factor in gas, food and impulse buys for the day too. IMO all holidays are shit. Thanksgiving is the worst, lets celebrate the genocide of a culture. I wonder if the Germans celebrate killing all the Jews? Prob. not. (but don't quote me on that because they might for all I know) Christmas in America seems no longer to be about the birth of Christ (which he was not born on the 25th as we celebrate it), but more of how much crap we really don't need can we score in a day. Or how much money can we make off people. Easter, forget about it. Last I checked an egg shitting bunny had nothing to do with it. Halloween is stolen from pagans and applied to the christian faith. We encourage children to dress as ghosts and vampires and go door to door begging. Yeah pretty retarded if you ask me. Valentines day, also started as a pagan festival, how it turned into a romantic greeting card holiday the world may never know. Cinco de Mayo? If this celebration was isolated to Mexican Americans I could understand, but hey this is america so lets every one get drunk. Also retarded. VE-DAY marks formal celebration of the Allies' victory in Europe during World War II. another celebration of killing people. Memorial day, lets be sad for killing eachother during the Civil war, what better way to morn the dead than with fireworks and a big how to do. Independance day, Declaration of Independence (which our goverment has shit all over) lets blow some more shit up, even bigger and better than the day of morning our fallen bretheren from the civil war. Columbis day, lets take a day off because a Italian guy completly missed his mark and "found" the new land. (which was already discovered by someone else) Oh yeah lets not for get that it also was already inhabited, but we will kill them later. Kwanzaa - Oh boy, this holiday (not celebrated by all) is built with good intension but sadly being the sheep we are neglect to remember the persons that founded this holiday (Maulana Karenga) was sentenced to one to ten years in prison on counts of felonious assault and false imprisonment for torturing two women. So OP even your rant is kinda pointless as it does not capture the true nature of the holiday.