Thanksgiving is, yes, my favorite holiday of the year. (Pardon the editorial slant of this episode). Thanksgiving has all the warmth and good will of Christmas without all the extra glitz and pressure. Why any holiday should have pressure is a question unto itself, but Christmas does. Why else would suicides and hotline calls go up dramatically in December each year? Thanksgiving has family, food, fun, football...and it is an All-American holiday. Thank the Pilgrims. Family first. Why then is American business trying so hard to ruin the day?
Black Friday is also an All-American institution and it was kind of fun to watch news coverage of the crowds stampeding into stores at 7AM, then 6AM and then 4AM...and now Thursday evening, 10PM. Some stores have opened all Thanksgiving day in recent years, like there is nothing special to the holiday at all. It's sad. One poor soul lost his life in a Black Friday WalMart shopping surge a couple of years back. Nothing is sadder than that.
Our friends at WalMart have used us to deliver their sale flyers each Thanksgiving, and each year we have been asked to sign a pledge/agreement to provide the utmost security of those flyers so that Black Friday specials would remain a national secret. And they meant business, too, if you were responsible for a leak. This year, WalMart leaked their own specials on their own site. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, I guess. Even 42" flat screen TV prices aren't special anymore.
Hats off to employees of Target and Best Buy who have organized online petitions asking their employers to have a heart and open Friday morning, allowing workers to have the whole Thanksgiving holiday at home. A valiant but futile effort; it's way too competitive out there in the market to allow anyone to get the jump on you.
In spite of my obvious disdain for all of this, I am thankful to live in a land where such things are possible. Where government doesn't tell business what they can or can't do. Where you have a thriving competitiveness, even in a sluggish economy. And where people can freely voice their opinion about their beliefs and not worry about ramifications, assuming those Target and Best Buy employees don't lose their jobs for speaking out.
We at the Scotsman hope you have much to be thankful for this year.
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