This post was published in 2011, but sadly, it seems it’s an even bigger issue in 2012. Hoping retailers will start taking a stand for what’s important in future Thanksgivings to come. -Meagan
Historically, I haven’t put much thought into Thanksgiving. Perhaps because it’s the one holiday where I’ve never had specific, lasting traditions (as a kid I alternated Thanksgivings between my mom and dad; as an adult, we spend it with a different family member every year) or maybe because I’ve just never been able to wrap my brain around gelatinous cranberry sauce, I’ve never treated it with the same reverence and planning as I do Christmas…or even Halloween.
I do love Thanksgiving’s sentiment, however: take a few days off work or school, get together with your friends and family, reflect on your blessings, eat your body weight in turkey and pie…yes, please. I love that nothing all that unusual happens, there are no carols or gifts or costumes (unless your family is really into it, I suppose). It’s got all the elements of a memorable day – food, friends, family, and for some, football – without any of the pressures of a larger or more commercialized holiday.
Until now?
I’ve done the whole get-up-at-4AM-and-wait-in-line Black Friday shopping thing exactly once, after which I decided that I would rather donate plasma in order to pay full price than ever again stand out in the bitter cold for hours, hoping for a marked-down DVD player. But while Black Friday shopping has never been my cup of tea, at least it’s never cut into our Thanksgiving Day celebrations.
This year, however, a long list of major retailers including Best Buy, Target, and WalMart will start their Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving. (Well, technically Target and Best Buy don’t open until midnight, but just how early do you think people will start lining up on Thursday to get those limited-quantity “doorbuster” deals?) What might this trend do to the tradition of the relaxed family meal and an evening spent chatting, playing board games or watching football?
It’s hard to place the blame solely with retailers, who are probably under immense pressure to start their sales when everyone else does so as not to miss out on potential shoppers. And I guess it’s not surprising that a lot of people would rather wait in line in the evening (even if it is Thanksgiving) than get up in the middle of the night.
Of course, if retailers hadn’t started pushing the opening time up in the first place – or pushing this silly “shopping holiday” – to begin with, it wouldn’t be an issue.
On the other hand, if we weren’t so eager to give up our family time for discounted stuff, the idea probably never would have been dreamed up in the first place.
Everybody loves a deal, and yes, I’ve seen the ads…this year, it looks like there will be some good ones. I also know that so many families are struggling to make ends meet, and that the discounts available on Black Friday could make a real difference in their Christmas budgets.
But I really hope these early sales turn out to be a failed experiment. I’m holding out hope that, despite all the buzz and uber-bargains, when Thanksgiving actually comes around enough people will decide they’d really rather spend the whole day with their families rather than having to rush out right after downing the last bite of pie. Then, maybe retailers will see that it doesn’t really benefit anyone (perhaps least of all their employees) to keep pushing the time up and up and creating false competition, both between the stores and between the shoppers. In the end, stores will give us what they think we want, so the power lies with us to draw the line.
There is enough stuff for everyone, and plenty of season left for all of us to do our Christmas shopping. But what we don’t have a whole lot of these days is time…to enjoy good homemade meals, to enjoy conversation, to just enjoy one another’s company.
Thanksgiving might not be flashy, but it serves an important purpose. It doesn’t need carols, costumes, gifts, or dirt-cheap big-screen TVs to make it a special occasion. And starting this year, I think I’ll do my part to give it the attention it deserves.
Is Thanksgiving an important holiday in your home? What do you think about the trend toward Thursday “Black Friday” sales?
Photo credit: everyskyline via Flickr Creative Commons
{ 34 comments… read them below or add one }
Have you heard of treating Black Friday as “Buy Nothing” day?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Nothing_Day
Personally, I feel like anything I can’t afford at full price I simply can’t afford to give as a gift. NO discount is worth spending time in line instead of with friends and family.
But, of course, I also try to get all my holiday shopping done BEFORE Thanksgiving, so I don’t have to worry about it the month of December
Amy, I have heard of Buy Nothing Day but always forget it’s on Black Friday because I am rarely tempted to buy anything that day, anyway! I usually sit around in my pajamas until the day is half-over, then pull out Christmas decorations and music!
I don’t like the midnight Thanksgiving sales. Or the day of Thanksgiving sales. But, judging by the length of the lines, I’m in the minority. Waking up in the middle of the night the day after Thanksgiving and going to the 7-11 for a giant cup of coffee and then off to stand in line with other crazy people who haven’t showered or done their hair? LOVE IT!
Walmart, since they never close anymore, lacks a lot of things, IMHO. Standing around inside a warm store for 12 or so hours to get a great price on a laptop just isn’t for me.
Toys ‘R Us has done the midnight Thanksgiving sale for a couple years. I learned 2 years ago that they have the same great deals on their website Thanksgiving night, without the lines and the drama. Score! Same with Kohl’s.
So as my life has evolved, I don’t much like the trampling crowds of the sales and the sales starting even before the dishes are done from the special dinner. I generally go to JoAnn’s for flannel on the bolt and the fun feeling of being out in the middle of the night with coffee and strangers who will be my best friends for an hour or so. Then I go home and crawl back into bed.
While I have gone shopping the day after Christmas, I can only think of one time that I may have gone shopping the day after Thanksgiving–and it may have been that weekend, not Black Friday itself.
I have a fairly limited gift budget, and I do most of my shopping online, so there’s not much incentive for me to join the crowds. I’d rather relax and spend time with family.
This is the first I’ve heard of this (obviously I’m not a shopper) but I really pray it doesn’t catch on. Thanksgiving is my very favorite holiday (even more than Christmas… despite being a Christian). I fell like Christmas has been hijacked, overhyped and I end out way too stressed out with the gift expectations and everything else to enjoy it properly.
Thanksgiving though… ahhh, that is the holiday with no crazy expectations… only friends, family and food. It is the ONLY holiday I HOST willingly and happily. I can’t wait for next week.
I will not be lining up to shop Thursday or Friday.
No caffeine-fueled commercialism for me either. I’m with Amy – if it’s usually too expensive the discount probably will not make a difference.
I couldn’t agree more with all of your words!
As I was reading this, I was also watching our local news. Apparently, we aren’t the only ones who feel this: a Target employee has started an online petition at change.org to ‘Save Thanksgiving’ and keep it free of the holiday sales. It has 92,000 signatures right now.
Sure would be nice if businesses would listen to the people and keep the tradition of Thanksgiving being a family day and shopping can be done on Friday. I do enjoy being out amid the ‘crazies’ on Friday morning, but never HAVE to have anything.
If you want to sign the petition, it is here: http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-target-to-save-thanksgiving
I saw this on the news, but also saw a statement from Target saying that the man starting the petition isn’t actually scheduled to work on Thanksgiving night anyway. Anyone have an updated story on this?
Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday of the year. I’d never want to interrupt it with the stress of shopping (but then I’m not a fan of shopping when it’s NOT crowded). I’m much too fond of snuggling into a warm bed in a Tryptophan-induced semi-coma. Over the years I’ve gotten away from feeling the pressure of Christmas shopping. We simply don’t have the money to give gifts to people. So I turn into a cookie baking machine for the month of December and we give homemade gifts. Most Thanksgiving weekends I have to work at the Theatre anyway, so I’m blissfully insulated from the madness of Black Friday shopping. We will always maintain the purity of Thanksgiving in our home with friends and family gathering around the table to share a meal together. I hope the spirit of Thanksgiving infects a few more holidays and keeps the commercialism at bay.
Thanksgiving is a huge deal in our house, especially since we stopped celebrating Halloween and Christmas.
I never did anything on Black Friday until a few years ago, and I thought it was great fun. I do think it would be easier to hit a midnight sale than a 5 AM one, especially considering you’re usually done with dinner by 4 PM on Thanksgiving anyway.
But the whole idea of shopping for a solid month? Not my idea of a way to spend my time. It makes me more glad every year that we stopped celebrating Christmas.
Personally, I do my birthday and holiday shopping throughout the year. I’ve never been to a Black Friday sale, and never plan to.
It seems that some retailers are really extending their sales over a few days, though, so if people want to take advantage, they should keep that in mind. I think amazon.com already has some stuff on their Black-Friday-prices list.
I’m so with you on this. I really feel badly for the employees who have to give up family time and put up with the madness. My husband and I have done Black Friday once together and he did it once by himself. What we learned is store may only have 5-10 of those “door-buster items”. There may be other things that have good sales, but it seems that if you just wait long enough a lot of things will go on sale right before Christmas anyway, so why the rush?
One of the reasons that Black Friday has zero allure for me is that I am very, very, VERY unlikely to buy a doorbuster-type item as a Christmas gift. TVs, laptops, expensive electronic gadgets — that’s never been what it’s about for my family, and I’m really thankful for that.
It makes me sad that these sales are starting on Thanksgiving, which I’ve always viewed as sacred for all the reasons you mentioned, Meaghan. What does it say about our consumer culture when we can’t even spend a whole day with our families without resorting to shopping?
Totally agree, Ashley. We don’t give or receive those types of gifts at Christmas (though one year we did buy ourselves a new TV as a “family” gift) so the deals/sales don’t really appeal to us anyway.
I don’t do black friday shopping either; although I may have bought a few things on amazon on that day last year, I can’t remember. Like previous posters, many of the “great deals” are on things I wouldn’t buy anyway.
I’m not all that into Thanksgiving. Growing up we’d have the big meal with family, play board games, etc. It was fun. Then I finished college/grad school, got married, and moved across the country for my job. Traveling back for Thanksgiving was too expensive; if we did go back, we wanted to go at Christmas. The first couple of years we hosted a few friends from work who had also just transplanted here and had no family around. We’d all pitch in and cook the meal together. Then we started having kids and friends got busy with their own plans/traveling, some moved away… and from that point on we started the tradition of eating out for the meal. My job is in high tech manufacturing, so I can work on holidays and use the time off for other times of the year — so I’ve been working Thursday and Friday of Thanksgiving for about the last 6 years. This year, the restaurant we liked going to closed…. so I may actually try to whip up a very simple turkey dinner; prepping some of the dishes the night before. Once my youngest is 3 or 4, I’m going to look into volunteering as a family on Thanksgiving; perhaps feeding the meal to those in need or in the hospital, etc.
We love Thanksgiving and build up to it all month long, making a paper chain of the things we are thankful for, to read at the table.
We celebrate Buy Nothing Day as well, taking that day to listen to Christmas music, eat pie for breakfast, and make some gifts. As my kids get bigger, we focus more and more on what we can make instead of buy.
There’s a petition going around, started by a Target employee, asking that he not be forced to work on Thanksgiving. Apparently he will lose his job if he chooses to spend the day with his family.
I am trying to get rid of stuff not buy more! Let’s see standing in line Friday with strangers or enjoying my grown kids that are visiting? I get up early to make them a delicious breakfast:) Then we head out as a family to buy our Christmas tree on a Christmas tree farm. On Saturday my two Marines collect toys for Toys for Tots. More mom cooking and visiting with kids……………. That’s how we celebrarte.
Thanksgiving is a huge deal in my family.
I have mixed feelings on the Black Thursday thing. I have never, ever done Black Friday, I normally just avoid stores for the entire day. However, I have to admit that venturing out late on Thursday somewhat appealed to me — I am a nightowl anyway. Will I do it? I doubt it because crowds give me the heebie-jeebies.
I like to go to a movie on Thanksgiving if I can. Back when I worked at a theater it was one of the busiest evenings of the year.
Last year I wrote a scathing letter (and blog post) to Sears. They actually answered. You can read more here. http://www.cookingatcafed.com/2010/11/sears-corporate-shame-on-you.html
I think what Black Friday has become is reprehensible. I’m a couponer by nature, and I shop the sale papers – but I’ve never stood in line for Black Friday deals.
First of all, they have limited quantities – which encourages fighting in the stores and brings out the worst in people. Second, having the stores open means that employees have to give up their Thanksgiving to stock or work the sales.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday – board games, food, laughter – I would never cut that short to camp out in a line. There are some things more important than the chance of saving a few bucks.
To those who say that they are just trying to save money on Christmas presents, I would challenge them to limit their gifts and instead spend more quality time with their loved ones. Toys and Christmas reindeer sweaters will not be what we remember years from now. (Okay, maybe we’ll remember that reindeer sweater!)
It’s the moments share that are priceless.
~
Loved reading your post and their response, Dana! Good for you!
Even if that Target employee doesn’t have to work, thousands of other Target employees will have to work. I’m sure there’s pressure from managers at Target and the other retailers to give up family time for the sake of the corporation. I think it’s important as consumers to do our part and NOT participate because employees have little choice when faced with management pressures.
Black Friday shopping was a family tradition when I was growing up. All the men would sit at home and watch sports while the women went out and shopped. At the beginning of the ultra-early store openings a few aunts would wait in line, but mostly we’d still get together for an early breakfast and hit the stores around 7 or 8am. However, as the lining up got earlier and then the store openings got earlier AND the sales moved online as well, the tradition dissolved.
I can’t say I miss being in the stores on that day or spending the money, but I do miss the time I got to spend with the women in my family. No new tradition has cropped up to replace that one. It’s kind of strange that we had a shopping tradition that got ruined by the increased commercialization and price wars, but that seems to be exactly what happened.
When I finally started having enough seniority at work to be able to participate, I did start doing the 5am trek to the mall (always my favorite place for shopping) but I did it with my youngest sister as a girls’ day out. I never went for anything specific, but would have an idea of what I wanted for each person and would see if I could get any deals. But the mall is not crazy with lines and all the madness like Walmart, Target etc.
I have not gone in several years and I am honestly NOT A FAN of Thanksgiving…I’m a very picky eater and I hate the food. The only thing I love about it is being with my family and no deals are worth giving that up.
I have noticed that ToysRUs is REALLY trying to get business…the emails I get from them have been coming SEVERAL times a day! Normally it’s 1 a week!
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Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday (mostly for the food) so it’s sort of a big deal to me. We don’t travel and rarely have family come to us but I insist my husband at least work out his schedule to be home for dinner that night (he’s high enough with seniority to get the day off and before that we sometimes scheduled our dinner on another day so he’d be home). I still cook a huge meal for just us and the kids (all 5 of them) and we all hang out, eating and watching movies/football.
And there is no shopping. I have never even had an urge to go out shopping on Black Friday or Thanksgiving (unless it was to grab some cranberry sauce that we forgot). I really don’t care how early they open the stores, it doesn’t effect me because I will never go shopping on those days. We don’t start our Christmas shopping until after December 5th and we finish the rest of it after the 20th when my husband gets paid again. We spend very little on Christmas.
I used to work at Wal-mart before kids and had to work Thanksgiving. It sucked. We both worked there and were both on that night but I got done earlier than my husband so I had to rush home and start cooking our dinner and then go back and pick him up. We had an easy to cook turkey roll (processed meat) and a bunch of other crap since I didn’t have time to cook. I HATED it. Thankfully, I never had to work another one since I became a stay at home mom the next year.
I’m just now getting caught up on my post-holiday blog reading, and ran across this post.
It’s funny because I was griping to my housemate about this very thing over the weekend. Our local grocery store used to have the cutest ads for Thanksgiving … but not one this year; they were all devoted to post Thanksgiving sales. No one, in fact, had any Thanksgiving advertising that I saw. It was all “Black Friday” this and “Black Friday” that. What happened to the holiday itself? It’s almost like Black Friday is the holiday and Thanksgiving is just the “lead in day” to the Big Event. It makes me sad that we as a society value the materialistic buybuybuy gottagetmorestuff day over the day that celebrates being thankful for what we have.
(Remember I work for America’s department store
— I have many coworkers reporting for duty at 11pm Thurs)
Everybody gets to make the choice for themselves. If people value a deal (for standing in line for hours) .. that’s what they value. If people value family time, they’ll make good use of it. I don’t see the importance of making petitions or statements — do what is important to you and your family, right? Laying blame at retailers is really misguided, I think. To me, it’s kind of like blaming McDonalds for the size of my thighs.
Do they? Get to make the choice for themselves, I mean. (And I’m not being rhetorical, I mean, in your place of employment is working the holiday voluntary or not?)
I don’t know, I’m not signing petitions or trying to pass new laws or anything, but I do think it’s OK for us as a society to band together and say “hey, we think X is important, and we want to preserve it.” My sense is that retailers started doing this because they thought customers wanted it. And then other retailers felt the pressure and started doing it, too. And then customers who never otherwise would have considered shopping on Thanksgiving started to worry that they’d miss all the good deals.
I’m all about personal responsibility, but I think that we are allowed as a group to have opinions about things that are important to us, and that if enough people feel a certain way it makes sense to express it en masse.
I also keep thinking that if this were Christmas or Easter there would be a lot more furor. Maybe it’s just that most people don’t rank the holidays the same? But to some, it’s just as important a family holiday.
Definitely food for thought. I’m new (aside from a few stints in my younger years!) to retail. And I will accept complete responsibility for my career choice. I’m not working the holiday (but yes, to black Friday). I did work a half day several years when I worked in nonprofit, though. I’m definitely not saying Shhhh to anyone. I love how the process of people expressing and sharing (and listening! opinions can move us all.
I love tradition. I love family holidays and time spent with close friends/family. Another thing to consider is how much emphasis do I put – as a whole – on family time? Now that football season is over (although basketball is proving to be more time consuming!) we are back to having manditory family dinners unless you are hospitalized, working (or in my son’s case, it’s someone else’s turn to host Monday night football).
I’m still torn on this issue. My initial visceral reaction is “Gasp! No one should have to work on Thanksgiving!!!”…but then I realize that lots of people have to work on Thanksgiving, and many of them want the paychecks (usually time and a half) that come with that.
I don’t think I’ll be going shopping on Thanksgiving itself, and I’m greatful for stores like JCPenney that aren’t even opening until a reasonable time on Friday, but I don’t think its immoral for stores to be open or for people to go shopping on Thanksgiving itself. I hope online sales will make the demands on physical retailers on Thanksgiving light and let them have minimal staffing (ideally just the people who actually want to work that day, although I know that’s not really what will happen).
Ridiculous story there. What occurred after?
Good luck!
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