Thanksgiving? What's That?
So, I know that there are at least a handful of people thinking it (and maybe someone even said it on the other vent thread), but I'm just gonna come right out and say it:
Physical stores that open anytime before normal business hours in Black Friday (and this includes being open on Thanksgiving) are pointless and dumb.
Before I get into my rant, let me just say that I really don't mind certain grocery stores being open Thanksgiving morning, to a certain extent. Before noon, so long as people have volunteered to do it, sure. That's fine. People sometimes have last-minute emergencies or whatever and need something they didn't prepare for. Hospitals, clinics, the police, yeah, all of them have to be open to keep things running smoothly, because accidents and crimes still happen on holidays, believe it or not. But those few things are the only INSERT YOUR FAVORITE FRUIT HEREing things that have an excuse anymore.
I worked in a "Big Box" store once upon a time. I was there on Black Friday from midnight to noon selling my butt off, practically throwing people out the door with armloads of heavily-discounted stuff. I was a man on fire, but despite moving thousands of dollars worth of product by myself, our store lost money. We lost money hand over fist, and that's the situation most of physical stores face. Because you have employees working for an additional 8-14 hours, the products are sometimes being sold for a net loss for the store (gotta make up for it with accessories!), stores have lost money on Black Friday. Maybe the overall company shows a bit of a profit, but that was before the advent of the internet. Now people can just buy the stuff online from the comfort of their own home, and with so many online stores offering Pre-Black Friday deals now, opening your doors out of normal business hours is like shooting yourself in the head.
Even if it weren't for the loss of money though (which, as I said, the companies don't face overall or they would have given it up long ago), now companies are losing face by treading upon Thanksgiving. The moment Halloween is over, suddenly it's Christmas in stores. People (myself included) are getting tired of Thanksgiving (a holiday all about being thankful for and celebrating people rather than mass-marketed gifts or candy, or even religion) being treated like it's dirt. So, those businesses cutting into family time, cutting into the holiday for a profit? They're now getting bad reputations because they're being morons by keeping their doors open during a holiday when they could just wait and sell the same stuff online. I don't even shop on Black Friday if I can help it, and I refuse to shop at any store that opens on Thanksgiving not just on Thanksgiving or Black Friday, but for the rest of the year. Oh, and one more thing...
I like Thanksgiving because it's not about getting things.
I'm selfish and greedy and full of flaws the rest of the year (including Wrath, as you might have guessed), but Thanksgiving is (to me) about sharing a meal with family and just enjoying their company. Yes, we eat too much and, yes, there's a lot left over, but if you threw out the food I'd still have a good time because Thanksgiving isn't even about the food. It's not. I'm sorry. It might be to some people, but Thanksgiving is about being thankful, about being grateful, about cherishing what you have and keeping people sane between Halloween and Christmas.
I'm tempted to go on, to rant for another hour or two about why Thanksgiving is important, and why it's just plain infuriating that there are people who don't recognize that, but I have a plane to catch, and I'm trying to learn to let things go at times (not all the time, but more often than I currently do).
Hope you all had a wonderful Turkey Day!