Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in celebration of the holiday taken from us all too soon. It’s seems like only yesterday we were celebrating Halloween and getting ready for a month full of anticipation for turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, green beans, yams, and those golden delicious buttery rolls.
It is with a heavy heart that I report Thanksgiving is no longer being yearned for and sought after. No more do we give thanks for what we have and bless those who are in our lives. The greed and commercialization of Black Friday, Christmas shopping and TV channel countdowns getting ready for Christmas day have stolen the spotlight and forever taken away our day where it’s socially acceptable to eat twenty times your weight in food all in one sitting.
Stores have had Christmas decorations in since the beginning of October, families have begun writing letters to Santa and loved ones with lists of presents they want for Christmas, even my grandmother has started putting her tree and decorating it. What is wrong with people? Why did they have to take from us this beloved holiday? The one where we sit together as a family. The one where we hate on stores who force their employees, our mothers, sisters, fathers, brothers, aunts and uncles to work on a day meant for family. The one where we play backyard football after dinner and watch grandpa fall asleep on the couch after too much to eat. The one where family rivalries duke it out over televised football after they sat together and awed over Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.
We need to put an end to black Friday madness. What happened to loving one another and giving gifts from the heart? Does it have to be the fastest and greatest technology? Do you need to buy it at 2am on a Friday, when the retail workers (and yourself) should still be home with your families, sleeping or just hanging out? Our commercialization of Christmas has turned the world mad and took away from us the one day set aside each year for family love and get together.
We don’t sleep on the night of thanksgiving because we’re too preoccupied with the thought of Christmas. We jump straight from Halloween to Christmas and in some cases we jump from summer to Christmas. And it needs to end. Stop skipping holidays because you’re more in favor of the next one. All holidays matter, not just Christmas. Thanksgiving matters, too. As a country we need to put things back to the way they were years ago. It was a simpler time and the holidays progressed like normal. Of course children always wanted it to be Christmas, but adults were always there to remind us that there were other holidays, too. Let us not always act like children. Let us grow up and learn to accept that Christmas isn’t for another almost two months.