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War on Thanksgiving has small set-back

In light of the red cup controversy of 2015, I think its safe to say there is no war on Christmas. However, I think there’s a legitimate reason to believe there’s a war on Thanksgiving Day.

Imagine a day where you get together with every single immediate family member to do nothing but eat delicious food, goof off and be made acutely aware of every blessing in your life. This day exists, it is called Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and I’ll tell you why. It’s a holiday literally about being thankful, which I feel like is the secret to happiness. I can be kind of a negative person sometimes. I can get caught up with school and life and just get stressed out, especially around this time of the semester. But Thanksgiving is probably the biggest blessing – it is like the Sabbath day, except delicious. It’s a time of rest when you get to drop everything and focus on family.

But Thanksgiving is slowly being taken over by another holiday called Black Thursday or “Gray Thursday.” The Black Thursday phenomenon started about 10 years ago in America. The UK has followed suit in the last couple years. Consumers in the UK spent £800 million on Thanksgiving in 2013, according to Daily Mail.

Black Thursday is when instead of being thankful for everything you have and focusing on family, you go push and shove people for cheap sales items all in the name of consumerist America. Black Thursday takes those who work in retail away from their families, sometimes with no choice because they will get fired if they don’t work.

Because of Black Thursday, last year, for the first time in my life, my family had to celebrate Thanksgiving Day without my mom. My mom works at K-Mart, and K-Mart celebrates this holiday called Black Thursday, along with most other big retailers including, but not limited to, Walmart, Target, J.C. Penney, Sears and Macy’s.

This year is a little better than last and I just want to take a moment to be thankful for that. This year, some people get to go home to their families. This Thanksgiving my mom gets to spend the day with us instead of a million hard-core consumers who think they have to buy their family Christmas presents early instead of actually spending time with their family.

So thank you REI, Costco, Fred Meyer, Bed Bath and Beyond and all the other stores that are letting people celebrate with their families. Thank you for staying strong. And to everyone who plans on Black Friday shopping, please at least wait until Friday.

For a list of all the stores who are staying closed on Thanksgiving, click here.

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