Whatever Happened to Thanksgiving?
Whatever happened to Thanksgiving, you know what I mean. The holiday at the end of November between Halloween and Christmas. It seems almost forgotten about now a days. The Halloween sections in the stores vanish, companies and individuals alike begin to but up Christmas lights, and we start hearing about wonderful gift ideas. It almost feels like companies just skip Thanksgiving now and there is a reason why. This reason fuels the way we live our lives and is what keeps us honest and true to our lifestyle means, money.
Money
Halloween is a big money holiday. We spend cash on costumes, decorations, parties, and candy. We eat a lot sugar and we give a lot of treats away. This creates a short term boom in our economy. Candy companies, grocery stores, and specialty stores spend all year preparing. Trick or treat style candy bags and pumpkins can be purchased almost anywhere. Once Halloween time ends companies move on to their next selling season and unfortunately, grocery stores aside, Thanksgiving is not a big money holiday. We typically do not buy clothing or gifts for Thanksgiving. The holiday is about food after all and most retail or sales companies have nothing to advertise during the Thanksgiving season. As a result businesses start focusing on the next holiday, which happens to be the biggest. December is the busiest month of the year for almost any company. There is a lot of money in selling people gifts and a lot of money being spent by small businesses who do not want to end the year with extra cash on hand for tax reason. Any good salesman knows that selling in December is important and because of this attention has been taken away from Thanksgiving.
What is Thanksgiving?
Thanksgiving is a holiday unique to the United States of America; however, what do we really know about it. The story goes that European settlers, new to America, had a tough time adjusting to the new climate. This made farming more difficult and food became hard to come by. The original colonists were in trouble but were helped by Native Americans. These indigenous people were more a custom to the soil and climate and were much more successful farmers. It is believed that these Native Americans helped the original colonist and had a feast. This meal became the first Thanksgiving. That story is very vague, but the truth is we really don’t know what exactly happened. The story has been changed and degraded through time. So, we choose, every year, to have a holiday at the end of November to pay homage to the original feast.
Thanksgiving can also be classified as a harvest festival. It is the last hora of fall and transitions us to winter. The holiday can be used as a celebration for farmers who have had a successful year and who are ready for a short break. Much of America is too cold to plant and grow crops in during the winter and Thanksgiving is an end to a summer and fall of hard labor. It is also the time when we have the most food in surplus. We spend all summer working to ensure we have enough food to eat and sell to make money. We know we cannot produce crops during the winter so we prepare by saving. Thanksgiving is the climax of this preparation and there is plenty of food to go around, what a great reason to celebrate and feast.
Black Friday
Think about what we buy for Thanksgiving and how much money we spend. We buy food, decorations, desserts, and more food. Occasionally we will buy a new kitchen tool to help us while we cook and serve. Pumpkin pies, whole turkey’s, and stuffing mix ingredients is all we really need to host a feast. This is the real reason why Thanksgiving if forgotten about. Sure local farms and grocery stores make a lot of money and conduct a lot of transactions but they make up a small sector of the economy. Companies know the real way to produce a quality fiscal year is to maximize the holiday season. Retailers spend all year comping up with advertising campaigns and trying to discover the next big holiday gift idea. By starting sooner than later the holiday season can be maximized. It’s not that companies really forget about Thanksgiving, it is that they really don’t care about it because it has no impact on business. Well that isn’t really true. Thanksgiving weekend and the Friday after Thanksgiving, known as black Friday, is the busiest sales and shopping day of the year. This is not by accident but by design. Companies have spent years marketing this day and creating a shopping frenzy. It is the perfect time. Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday and companies, schools, and government organizations are all closed. These same business entities see Friday as a great way to give employees a long weekend. As a result most people do not work Black Friday. This creates the perfect storm for sales companies, especially retail businesses. People are available and they have time to shop. Retail stores, long ago, started to create special sales to bring people in to shop on Black Friday and the national shopping day was born. In the last several years companies have extended their hours and some now even open Thanksgiving evening to maximize the selling time. Additionally, companies now order unique products just to sell as special deals for the holidays and black Friday is when these products debut.
Thanksgiving Matters
Businesses would have us forget about Thanksgiving because it is not a holiday that people shop for. As a result, our culture, as a modern economy, has turned the holiday into a brief stop on the way to Christmas. It is up to us to ensure we do not forget about it. This really is a simple task. It starts by ensuring we celebrate Thanksgiving. We spend some time with our family and loved ones and talk about what we are truly thankful for. Additionally, we spend a few days prior, or a few hours during, Thanksgiving to talk about history. Talk about what it was like for the original colonies and what settlers had to go through. A local library can be of great help here. Go and get a book about Thanksgiving, or the original European settling of the United States, and learn something. The resources are out there, and history should always be remembered. It is up to us to ensure we give this holiday the attention and the justice it deserves. So spend a bit of time and think about how you want to celebrate Thanksgiving. It should include friends and family and of course a lot of good food.