Next Stop, Commercializing Arbor Day

As I've grown up, I've developed an increasing appreciation for the holiday of Thanksgiving. As a child, Christmas was always at the top of the list when it came to holidays, which made sense because it offered:

1. Getting stuff, namely stuff that I couldn't afford to buy myself
2. A full week or more of vacation
3. Good vibes that I've partaking in a spiritually uplifting experience

As twenty years have passed and I've grown to adulthood, these three benefits have been tempered by the respective realizations that:

1. I'm capable of buying anything I really need, plus any gift big-ticket items is being taken out of my own bank account
2. With young kids, work is arguably less physically less tiring than staying home. Also, a smartphone culture puts me "on call" even when I'm on vacation
3. What happened to Christ being in Christmas? As Charlie Brown and Linus lamented, the commercialism has overwhelmed the holiday. I vaguely remember seeing a New Yorker-type print cartoon with a man asking his spouse in front of a card kiosk asking, "What the deal with all the religious stuff on these Christmas cards?"

Thanksgiving, at least relatively speaking, kept the focus on the universal importance of giving thanks. Regardless of religious belief or philosophy, it was universally held that t take time to give thanks for all that one had and experienced was a good thing, so logic followed that society at large could agree to keep commercialism out of it. In theory, we'd all agree to make this a holiday about friends, family, and reflection and acknowledgement of all that we have to be thankful about.

But then came Black Friday, and what was once a small afterthought in post-Thanksgiving tradition has become a behemoth worth hundreds of millions of dollars in American commerce. Black Friday is becoming dangerously central to the holiday to the point where Thanksgiving dinner is merely the meal to gear up for the shopping marathon. Black Friday has become a week-long event. Not only are people getting increasingly absorbed in finding sales, people are resorting to violence to ensure they get the best deals.

Of course, there are some people who are trying to fight this machine, and I'm oddly finding myself cheering for the Occupy Wall Street crowd as they blast the idiocy of the Black Friday obsession and craziness. In fairness, I root for OWS in this case more because I think Black Friday madness has gone to far, but not because I begrudge companies' right to maximize their revenues for the benefit of their shareholders. If their point is to inform shoppers that there's a better use of their time and money than to stand in a line at midnight and join a mob to buy a $5 copy for Green Lantern, then go for it. But the stores aren't completely to blame for the gullibility and stupidity of consumers.