Consumerism is starting to gobble up Thanksgiving Day and it is a sad trend for Americans to follow.
Time with family and friends sharing thoughts of gratitude over a feast should not be traded for a holiday bargain.
People who participate in the encroachment of shopping on Thanksgiving need to rethink their priorities. In a society that has grown increasingly materialistic, this holiday is one of the last that focuses on enduring values.
The roots of Thanksgiving lie with the Pilgrims and Puritans who emigrated from England to the New World in the 1620s. They brought with them the tradition of celebrating the blessings tied to a plentiful fall harvest.
These celebrations were held informally until Nov. 26, 1789, the day proclaimed by President George Washington as the first nationwide Thanksgiving.
Inconsistency in the date continued until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation that Thanksgiving should be officially recognized on the final Thursday in November.
According to historical reports, he took that action to foster a sense of American unity between the North and Confederate states, which were engaged in a bloody civil war. Because the South refused to recognize Lincoln’s authority, a nationwide Thanksgiving date was not realized until the effort to reunite the country had made headway in the 1870s.
It appears the way was paved for Thanksgiving to be eclipsed by materialism when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a joint resolution of Congress in 1939 to change the celebration from the last Thursday in November to the fourth. He believed that moving Thanksgiving to an earlier date would provide more holiday gift buying time, giving the country an economic boost during the Great Depression.
The same reasoning is in play today as retailers struggle to stay open in a limping economy. But there is a larger principle here that is even more important to support.
America’s families are facing many stresses in an increasingly complex world. Many parents have ex-spouses to contend with and visitation schedules for their children to juggle.
In addition, both husband and wife are working in most households and they are juggling roles to keep up with the demands of hectic schedules.
As a result, there is less opportunity for families to gather around the table for bonding time that includes a hearty dinner, conversation and good humor. In many cases, sons and daughters have followed career paths to places far away, so Thanksgiving is a time of reunion.
Although retailers claim to be “sensitive” to the spirit of Thanksgiving by opening doors in the evening, times have begun to creep forward and the outcome is easy to see.
Before too many more years have passed, people will have to choose whether to sit down with the family over a turkey dinner or make the meal to-go in order to score discounted gift items.
This is one time that Americans need to grab a tradition and hold on tight. We are the world’s greatest consumer nation, but we are founded on something much more precious than material wealth.
A few centuries ago, people with little in the way of possessions took time out of back-breaking labor to thank their Creator for survival and focus on the bounty they had been given.
Everything that is good about America is tied to Thanksgiving. Let’s not give up the value of gratitude and the priority of families for extra time at the mall.
Commented