This Thanksgiving, I know what I’m thankful for: Black Friday. Hey, it’s fitting that a holiday founded around the gratefulness of a plentiful harvest now has become a holiday focused around plentiful deals. The primary object of my thankfulness is indicative of the shift in priority, not just in myself but also our society, and of the always-evident materialism and excess that we live in.
The Thanksgiving holiday is based on gluttony—we gorge ourselves with way too much food, damage our eyes by staring at televised football games, see a little too much of our beloved families and get way too fanatic about shopping and spending money.
By all means, it sure is a lot of fun, but we need to stop parading this holiday under the facade of taking a moment to count blessings.
Each year, it seems family dinner on the final Thursday in November gets moved up in progressive increments—what used to be a 6 p.m. feast has become a midday ordeal. After all, we have to adapt, and this is the only way we can sneak off to those stores that keep opening earlier and earlier.
It isn’t just the early meals that prepare us for the big day; the increase in hoopla around this time of year serves a purpose as well.
We know all that football watching prepares us for the similar tackles and blocks we will need at the mall Friday. And yes, all the food we spill on our clothes during the Thanksgiving feast does justify quickly replacing them with JCPenney door busters.
Maybe the true meaning of Thanksgiving isn’t too far removed from what the early American settlers had in mind, the only difference being an industrialized setting. Contrary to the Pilgrims’ beliefs, the true savages on this continent are the people of Wal-Mart on Black Friday. The unexplored wilderness is the often unseen, but entirely too aggressive, reaction of the mother who fights for the final reduced Xbox One at Best Buy in the wee hours of the morning on Nov. 28.
As I am a native of the South—a region famous for mild weather and long summers— lasting through the winter months often proves difficult. The material distraction during the winter holidays behaves as a supplement for a lack of a suntan and not being able to walk outside in shorts and flip-flops.
Thanksgiving is important because it kicks off the season of “too much giving,” or the holiday season. These distractions and worldly pleasures we let consume our lives during the early winter are vital to keep us thin-skinned southerners going through dreaded frigid season.
Let’s stop pretending we still buy into the true meaning of Thanksgiving. All of the shopping and eating and football retract from what we are supposed to be celebrating— reflection, thanks and family. Not everyone in retail has the luxury of celebrating thankfulness and family, nor do those NFL players or the cooks and servers at the fancy restaurants. Our actions during the Thanksgiving holiday are most definitely subversive from what we are pretending to celebrate, so much so that the true spirit of Thanksgiving will probably never be reconciled.
Looking back and reflecting on our blessings of the year is not what Thanksgiving is about anymore—New Years has that covered. From now on, I encourage everyone to be more honest, because, like me, most of us are just in it for the pleasure of good food and great deals.
What are you thankful for?
