I’m a little mad. Let me tell you all about it.
I will admit that I’ve been an active participant in Black Friday chaos in years past. I’ve stood outside Best Buy in 11 degree weather with friends and family waiting for the store to open and the madness to begin. In the “good old days” we had to get up and go to the store by about 2 or 3 in the morning to get a decent place in line. The last time I stood in the queue was a few years back and we had to go there around 8:30 on Thanksgiving evening to get our place and wait for 5 AM when the store would open.
Now, the Black Friday, our national day of worship for the god Mammon is encroaching on our Thanksgiving celebration even a little more. In Sioux City, and I suspect in most places around the country, the stores are opening at midnight – just as Thanksgiving officially ends. So now, if you are going to get the “doorbusters” at most stores, you will have to be in line in the middle of the afternoon.
I know, I’m old. But Thanksgiving was one of my favorite days as a child. We got together with family. We ate. Then, we snacked. Then we ate again. Then had dessert. Then nibbled. Then ate. Then, we watched a little football and usually went out in the yard to play a little football. It was a day for family. And as best I knew there was not a store in Cedar Rapids or Taichung or Orlando (or Tampa – we sometimes went there to visit family) that was open.
Gradually, commercialism has turned Thanksgiving from a time of family fun to a respite before the shopathon begins.
And I hate it.
And that has nothing to do with the fact that I live 3/4 of a mile from a mall and I cannot go anywhere on Friday without sitting in big city style traffic. That adds to the aggravation, but it goes beyond that. I believe that we are losing something wonderful as we yield more and more of our culture to commercialism’s orgiastic celebrations.
When I was younger, we used to bemoan the increasing commercialization of Christmas. Now, though, the American God of Money is now working to steal Thanksgiving from us as well.
Enough! Maybe its time we bypass the deals and say that Thanksgiving is not for shopping or sitting in line at the local big box store. It is for giving thanks and sharing a meal and enjoying family. Is there money can buy that is worth giving up my Thanksgiving holiday to stand in line for? I say no.
This is more than just nostalgia. Thanksgiving WAS that wonderful! And I resent the attempt to deface this holiday by encroaching more and more on the day.
Now, I’ve got to go get ready to deep fry that turkey.
Enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday – and if you decide to do the malls and stores on Black Friday, enjoy yourself. Just don’t let it encroach on what really matters.
Yes and amen!
I actually work at Best Buy — and, small world, I worked at the Best Buy in Cedar Rapids for five years — and now most BB employees are forced to work split shifts on Black Friday. This means that they’ll arrive at work at 10pm on Thanksgiving (to prep) and work until about 7am, and then they come back at about 4pm and work until 11pm. The fortunate ones (myself!) only have to work the middle shift. Employees are pissed and depressed by the whole thing.
To get a sense of how big this god, Mammon, is: the Best Buy in CR would make about a million dollars in revenue on Black Friday. Yes, a million! In freakin’ Iowa!
I contributed quite a bit of that million dollars to the Cedar Rapids Best Buy. Did you work there in the early 2000s? 2002-2004? I used to go there with my son and his friends those years.
My older boys were both Kennedy grads.
I am a contrarian. I have refused to shop on black Friday for about 10 years now and very proud of it..well…not to the point of sin, I hope! In fact, I think the internet was invented for convenient shopping. To make the point even more obtuse….for any Thanksgiving food I need to buy, I go to Kroger while everyone else is asleep to avoid the mayhem and frenzy. Amazing how many calm people you see at that hour. Seriously, Kroger at midnight is bliss.
I have never been good with lines. But I do have tons of patience as I rarely use mine for such things. (wink)
LYDIA,
if you don’t have patience for lines, I hope you never shop Filene’s Bargain Basement in NYC at holiday time. I was involved in an altercation there one Christmas shopping season (I wasn’t one of the ones arrested, though), and I only shoved back instinctively because I was seven months pregnant at the time,
but I can tell you that I KNOW some of those women in that line had done time, because it was a brutal scene !
People think Costco and Best Buy are difficult . . . but, as a veteran (and survivor) of Filene’s Basement, I think those stores are a cake walk by comparison.
I have a significant case of claustrophobia. I don’t like being in the stores when there is not enough room to breath.
I did over 90% of my Christmas shopping the last couple years on eBay, Amazon, and Tiger Direct. Why even bother going out as long as we have the USPS?
I realized something years ago when I went to Walmart and spent almost a hundred dollars on storage bins for my ‘stuff’.
We were ‘getting organized.
I went home. Thought about it all. Returned the storage boxes. Got some grocery cardboard boxes and loaded them up and off we went to the Salvation Army with the goods . . . almost none of it needed in our home by us.
Course, I dropped the ‘stuff’ off at the back door, and went in and did some more shopping, which I then hid from my spouse who would have laughed his head off . . .
it’s hard to break the American Consumer in us, I think. But these days, some people out there need our ‘junk’, more than we need it in storage boxes, packed into a garage, to remain there until we kick the bucket, and our kids have to clean it out ,
and THEY take it all down to the Salvation Army.
So it goes. . . do we own our possessions? Or do they own us ?
I once did Filenes in Boston the week before Christmas…..a while back. never again
There are even places that are going to be open on Thanksgiving Day. Personally, I don’t do Black Friday. I shopped once with my daughter and niece. Never again. I think it is stupid how much money people spend on Christmas any way. I’d much rather make gifts for people. I also give gifts to charity in someone’s name. They can’t exchange that! Laugh at me if you will, but I bet most of the people you buy for can’t even tell you what you got them last year.
Was at Best Buy today and several of the employees I talked to aren’t real happy about the new Black Friday hours. They actually have to work Thanksgiving day to get ready.
And, they say that they expect people to start lining up Wednesday night and stay camped out all through Thanksgiving to get the deals.
Is nothing sacred? This encroachment backward from Christmas is maddening. What next? Commercialization of Halloween?
Oh, wait….
While I share the frustration at the dechristianization of our culture, the only day that is set apart for the Christian is Sunday. All holidays are worldly, and thus the world will do with them as they please. May we, however, enjoy and thank God for the extra time with our families.
Gal. 4:8-10 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.
I share most of your memories (except, of course that Black Friday to me has always been one of my least favorite days of the year and I’ve never been an “active participant,” despite the deals–BTW, I’m calling it “Black and Gold Friday” this year since Iowa plays Nebraska). One brief caveat–I wonder if the stores in Taichung ever closed for Thanksgiving Day? I tend to agree with your basic statement, though. Very little is sacred in our culture today. I’m sure that the day is coming when you’ll be able to return your Christmas gifts to the department store at 4:00 Christmas afternoon.
You are probably right about Taiwan, sir. I was thinking a little more of the CR and Florida Thanksgivings. I remember that one where we sat down at noon and the adults didn’t get up from the table until 7 PM.
You don’t have to call me “sir” just because I’m your elder.
I noticed that there are no posts dealing with the sin of gluttony. Maybe those are yet to come.
LOL, boy have YOU come to the wrong place. Big eaters here, I’m afraid. Maybe you can help!
And, I live in about the most evenly split Hawkeye/Husker place in the nation. It is very important to my sanity (and my ability to ridicule others) that the good guys win (and, for the record, the good guys do NOT wear red).
Thanksgiving is the one holiday that resists commercialization. I suppose now they’re trying to just replace it.
I’ve never been a Black Friday fan. There’s just nothing I need that badly to wait in line that long for. And we really try to keep our Christmas shopping simple anyway. Normally we put up our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, but this year my husband has asked that I defer that in favor of the LSU game :-).
You mean we should be content and thankful more than we should long for a lot more stuff that we don’t need?
Very interesting concept. 🙂
I came up with that myself.
Well, Thanksgiving is OUR national holiday . . . but it is a time to forget about ‘getting’ and to think about what has been given to us in abundance . . .
so I hope Thanksgiving is never become a shopping day . . . unless we buy food for those who don’t have it and take it to them,
so that they, too, might join in the feast, and pray with us the prayer of Thanksgiving.
To give thanks in celebration for the harvest is not just an American celebration. The oldest known prayer of thanksgiving before a meal comes to us from Judaism:
” Blessed are You, Adonai, our God,
King of the Universe,
Who brings forth bread from the earth. “
For every Christmas tree put up before Thanksgiving, an elf drowns a baby reindeer.
Hi VOL,
No, no, you’ve got it all wrong . . . the elves ‘love’ the reindeer, deerly !!!
Meet one of the tiny Laplander Saami people who herd the reindeer up by the Arctic Circle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5HcLFyPkYs&feature=related
Hey L’s,
I know you are trying to reform Vol from evil and all, but did you know that in weather like that a one shot kill out to 1500 yards in pretty easy on a deer like that. 🙂
Deer poppers are really, really good….you wrap a piece of bacon around a hunk of deer meat, which has been marinating…you also put a piece of onion and a pepper inside the bacon wrapped piece of meat…then you take those deer poppers and cook them on a grill…wow…deeelish…Bambi never tasted so good!
David
Vol,
That is the most cruel statement I have ever seen in print. Your heart does not pump blood. It pumps sulfuric mist.
I thought it was brilliant.
Dave,
I always knew that behind that gentle exterior there was a heart that longed to repeat movie lines such as “Luke, I am your father.”
I know, sometimes I can be cruel.
I used to hate cats with a passion.
Then, I learned if you cook them just right, they taste like chicken.
TO THEM WHAT EATS CATS:
Toxoplasmosis is passed to people from contaminated cats. People can get toxoplasmosis by cleaning kitty litter or touching dirt where cats might have been, including garden soil.
Toxoplasmosis can also be passed to people when they eat cat that is not cooked completely.
Dave,
I realize you and Vol both are evil hearted at times, him drowning baby reindeer and you running down cats in your car. But I am sure there is light enough in your hearts to cheer for the HOG NATION against the LSU NATION on Black Friday. As you know, if the HOGS win, the SABANATION will rise back up to their rightful place and goodness shall once again prevail in the world of FOOTBALL.
Amen, brother CB, let the Hog arise. Perhaps a good showing this weekend shall give us the rematch we need. I’d like to see if the current Hogs could be, at the least, less embarrassed than we were in September.
big dogs like cat meat, as well…just sayin’
Doug,
Have you noticed that Dave becomes extremely silent when the subject of BIG LEAGUE FOOTBALL (that means SEC football) comes up. Fear stiffens his fingers and he can’t touch the keyboard.
And make great Barbie doll fur coats.
LYDIA,
Barbie has ‘gone green’ and no longer wears fur. 🙂
Lydia,
Those Barbie Doll coats are made of cat fur? Really?
thanks, Dave….you’re a man, who knows what class is all about…CB needs a little work…lol
“Lydia,
Those Barbie Doll coats are made of cat fur? Really?”
They could be…….
They would be purrrrfect…..
You had me going there for a minute. I should have known better. If that was the case, PETA would have roasted poor Ole Barbie at the stake and tied Ken to a whaling ship in the China Sea. 🙂
wooo ha ha ha ha ha
David
Reindeer killer
lol
Doug,
I will admit that the November HOGS are in “full tusk” and not the young hams they were in September. I do sorely desire them to eat those swamp lizards alive on Friday and have a “Miles desert” to boot.
For every Christmas light put up before Thanksgiving, Santa gets a lick with a big paddle from Frosty….and boy, can that big snowman swing a paddle….
David 🙂
I am glad my children are not allowed to read Baptist Blogs.
🙂
You are a bad, bad man Vol.