Yesterday, during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, I heard a commercial for Big Lots that thought they cleverly re-dubbed Thanksgiving as “Thanksgetting”. The commercial touted the Black Friday specials at Big Lots. Right there in a timeslot of less than 60 seconds, Big Lots summed up what is wrong with our holiday season.
The commercial made me sad. I tried to imagine the creation of the commercial. Did someone independently write the content of the commercial? Did a group of people get together and think that the perversion of a holiday meant to be a time of giving thanks was a good idea? Do the creators of the commercial believe that getting material things is what we as Americans are all about?
As I am typing this, the stock market is taking a hit over new concerns of a Covid variant in South Africa. The breaking news on CNN is that scientists have sounded the alarm over the variant, and there is discussion around another possible travel ban. Europe is taking steps to control the outbreak. The US is moving slower in its response. People around the world are dying, and Big Lots wants us to be thinking about getting new things today.
The next story up is how inflation and supply chain shortages are impacting today’s Black Friday shopping. Every commercial is for Black Friday specials. Over the years, Black Friday has turned Thanksgiving into a weekend of “Thanksgetting”. Stores began opening up earlier and earlier, until they were open on Thanksgiving. Store employees could no longer spend time with their families because they had to go to work on Thanksgiving or basically in the middle of the night for the store to be open at 4 AM. Black Friday began robbing families of their time together at Thanksgiving, turning a time of giving thanks into a time of greedy accumulation of material things.
The pandemic shifted this sad trend in the other direction as consumers began shopping more online, and stores went to reduced hours due to labor shortages. Now, it feels like our country is determined to return to the trend of Thanksgetting taking over Thanksgiving. With the exception of pharmacies, which need to have some stores open in case of emergencies, I wish that as Americans we would collectively boycott stores open on Thanksgiving Day and those open so early on Black Friday that employees cannot enjoy their Thanksgiving. I also wish that employees working on holidays should be paid triple their normal wages. As a society, we are a long way from making these ideas a reality.
On the positive, tomorrow, is small business Saturday. If you made it to the end of this post, thank you for sticking with me and reading this. Please think about getting out of the house tomorrow and shopping at small businesses and dining at locally owned restaurants. Small and locally owned businesses are the backbone of our community and local economy. When is the last time Walmart donated to your high school theatre program? It is locally owned businesses that support our local schools. Let’s not forget this when we decide where to spend our money this holiday season.