November 23, 2015 (Monday)
Remember Thanksgiving? How about Halloween? Those two holidays have lost the battle for our attention, at least as far as the store decorations, special ads, and super sales events are concerned. Christmas has won the war, claiming center stage since-would you believe-late September?
Well, be that as it may, we still have Thanksgiving, and the day before this very special holiday features more travel than any other day of the year as people migrate back home for the traditional Thanksgiving meal with family. Most of these families will gather around a table and give thanks for their blessings, just like the name of the special day implies.
“Black Friday,” however, the biggest shopping day of the year, has given way this year to weeks of “Black Friday” sales, so that when the day finally arrives in 2015, it will be old hat.
President Roosevelt (FDR) moved Thanksgiving on the calendar to make it one week earlier, in order to extend the Christmas shopping season, in an effort to spur the economy in those awful Depression years. Mr. President, there is now no need for that because we’ve been in the Christmas shopping mode for two months already.
Halloween is about scary fun,* Thanksgiving is about giving thanks to God, and Christmas is about the birth of our Savior, but in our neck of the world’s woods, it’s one big shopping season.
No need to worry because an all-out effort is being waged to call the entire quarter of a year “the holiday season.” Perhaps, if we keep going at this rate, all the fall-winter holidays will be lumped together with one name, different from the present holiday names. Look at me, I’ve become a ranter and raver. I didn’t intend to do that. I would just like to see each special day continue to be special in its own way, with the chance to mean what it is supposed to mean. I guess I’m old-fashioned, but, at my age, I suppose that’s to be expected.
In the meantime, this is Thanksgiving week. Thursday will be Thanksgiving Day. Let us all give thanks to God for His countless blessings and marvelous mercies upon this great nation.
* Halloween is about scary fun, but it didn’t start out that way. It is about remembering the dead, and heralds a three-day liturgical observance for those who have stuck with the original meanings.