Thanksgiving...are we Thankful?

I saw a post this morning on facebook that triggered a theme in me. The person was talking about Thanksgiving and Black Friday and how Black Friday was now encroaching on Thanksgiving day and....I had to pause.

WE are the reason for this. We, the consumer have brought this type of behavior to the culture.  WE are supposedly, all into being "thankful" only to go out the next day and become greedy? You will see "fights" covered on the news the day after we as a nation stop to be Thankful. Really? Now people will be passing the turkey and running out the door to shop because of "door-busters" that are now happening all day on Thanksgiving? What? Why are we doing this?

My son who worked retail gave me some insight into these "door-busters".  Most the time they are over-stocked items that "bombed" in their market so they are being "resurrected" and sold as "deals".  Yeah, deals for the CEO's so they don't eat the losses on product that wouldn't or didn't sell.  Many times these electronics are "last years" model and out-of-date (as electronics go).  There is so much "hype" with it all and we, the people, are "suckers" for a deal.

We can stop this, you know. How? By not going. We can refuse to "feed the machine".  We can choose to enjoy family and friends and stay home, stay out of the stores, have a "holiday".  Wow, that's a "new" concept (*insert sarcasm here).   If we don't go to the stores, the stores will not open next year and invade our families because they are about the "bottom-line" and if it doesn't work, they won't do it. I have had children working retail (in the past) and I had a hard time with the bosses mandate as they had to go to "work" because ALL employees HAD a mandatory work day on Black Friday; and not just Friday but 4 hours before the store opens and the entire week-end.  So they had to leave the festivities because Best Buy opened at Midnight last year and all employees had to get there to "set-up" the deals.  They worked all night!  This is MADNESS!  It really felt wrong as he had to leave early to go home to sleep so he could leave at night to work all night and all day.  He left while we were still fellowshipping, laughing and enjoying the holiday but suddenly, it didn't seem so festive as "one of us" was no longer there.


This leads me to another observation. Many people are not even spending Thanksgiving with family anymore. This is tragic and many times, it is because of "choice" rather than circumstance.  As a kid, I remember great aunts coming to the house that we only saw at holidays, and for sure cousins were around when we were small and most definitely, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews and now...now, it pains me. My children will have their siblings and maybe even some friends but grandparents live out of state and so we only get them on the random holidays. They don't get uncles and aunts or even cousins anymore because of choices not circumstance and many of those relatives who could get together (as they live in the same town), won't.  Why?  Many reasons and most of them come down to "selfishness". 

In this month of Thanksgiving, maybe we all could try to give our time more to BEING thankful rather than just saying we are. Actions speak louder than words. Just a thought.

Where will you BE on Thanksgiving? Hopefully with family, laughing, playing games, watching movies, eating and hanging out as you create memories for your children and grandchildren to recall later in their lives.  You are forming traditions by what YOU choose.

Many relatives have come before you with great anticipation of this day as they helped form your traditions. What is the legacy you are making for the generations beneath you? The older I get as a mother, the more I understand tradition and the heritage it is to our seed.  May we choose wisely and go for the eternal and not just the temporal.