Family, Food, Football and Black Friday

Thanksgiving, families getting together, sharing good food, catching up, maybe since the same time last year, and watching football. To me, it’s the Great American Holiday. It’s the one I’ve enjoyed most since getting over Santa Clause.  Speaking of Ol Saint Nick, let’s consider the seasons. 

Christmas is the remembrance of our Savior’s birth and the occasion is well known by most everyone, even those who fail to understand, recognize or accept the Savior. It has, however, become a bastion of mercantilist, “oneupmanship” and begins on Black Friday and ends sometime thirty-days after the purchase dates of gifts bought for the required gifting. Hopefully, those gifts were bought with free returns. 

Thanksgiving, on the other hand has become the recognition of the birth of Black Friday, and until Halloween takes over the honor (remember you heard it here first) Black Friday will remain the reason for the season. 

What is the real reason for the Thanksgiving season?  Ask a Gen Xer or Millennial. Don’t know what kind of answers would emerge but probably different from us “normal” Boomers. 

Siri says, “Thanksgiving is modeled on a 1621 B.A. harvest feast shared by the English colonists (Pilgrims) of Plymouth and the Wampanoag people.”  (B.A. = Before Amazon) Can’t find anything about Black Friday. 

Do not mistake my thoughts as disrespect for the gifts of the Wisemen, gifts of love are quite different from the gifs of requirement, and I believe our Savior would agree. Do take my thoughts as an assessment of the holiday seasons we know and love. 

My thoughts and our realizations will not alter the march of marketing dollars but I hope it will give us pause to ponder the Pilgrims and our Savior’s importance in our Thanksgiving and Christmas prayers. Jim