11/26/09
The evolution of Thanksgiving, the day on which I write this missive, is now complete. A long time ago, Thanksgiving was a day of gratitude and humility for the blessings that God has imparted on our once great nation. We recalled the sacrifices of our forefathers, embodied in the story of the Pilgrims, which enabled our great experiment in self-governance, personal responsibility, and humility before our God to take root. It was a day to share with family, to celebrate, and reflect on the blessings granted to us in the happy confluence of events that resulted in our having been born in, or found our way to, this country.
Thanksgiving then began an evolution to what I called on my now famous and timeless and 11/22/07 post (BLESSED AND GRATEFUL THANKSGIVING !!!), “an excuse for gorging ourselves on turkey, watching football, and preparing for hyper-stressed Christmas shopping ordeals” and was given the detestable moniker “Turkey Day.” Concurrently with that evolution, which was itself contemporaneous with and reflective of the general downward devolution of our society, was Thanksgiving’s losing its own identity to become an ancillary celebration to what we still laughingly call “Christmas;” indeed, Thanksgiving became the kickoff of the “holiday shopping season.” By now, though, Thanksgiving is no longer the kickoff of the holiday shopping season; another sports analogy is appropriate. Thanksgiving is now more akin to the college basketball conference playoffs, i.e., the preliminaries are behind us and now the serious shopping begins. We were playing for fun, but now everything counts…it’s do or die.
Witness the headline in today’s Chicago Sun-Times (on Thanksgiving Day, mind you): “On Your Mark…Get Set…SHOP!!!” How can one possibly deny that America’s greatest days are ahead of it?
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