Do You Celebrate Thanksgiving Or Thanksgetting?

"In our culture, we tell our children that it is o.k. to be pleased with what you have done, but never be satisfied. You need to keep your eye on the prize, do not rest content with what you have. To be content is to stop moving forward, to stop moving forward is to quit and winners never quit. Only losers are content and contentment with what you have is the basis of thankfulness...

"To be American is to constantly be in a state of need, of having something else that is required to keep pace. To stop and be thankful for what we have is to fail to appreciate how much we do not have and how far behind that is leaving us."

(Steve Gimbel. "We're past Thanksgiving. Time for Thanksgetting"

USA Today. November 28, 2013.)

Steve Gimbel, professor of philosophy at Gettysburg College, sets forth a sarcastic argument that Thanksgiving is obsolete and that now the true American celebration is the next day, what has come to be called "Black Friday." Gimbel continues ...

"We should at least rename it Green Friday or, so as not to make it seem like another Earth Day we should name it 'Thanksgetting.'  After all, we are not thankful for what we have, but if you are well-mannered, you say "thank you" for what you get. It is the day when the process by which we get things begins and that is really what we are celebrating as Americans."

The third Thursday in November is now heralded as the kick-off of the holiday shopping season.
Projections say 74% of Americans will open their wallets on either Black Friday and Cyber Monday, according to the latest research from finder.com. The average adult is expected to drop $483.18 on the shopping holiday of holidays, which equates to $90.14 billion -- up $30.57 billion from 2017’s projected spend of $59.57 billion.

Of course, spending stimulates the economy and getting a bargain saves money for consumers eager to gift others as sharing, meaningful part of the Christmas tradition.

Really? OK, At What "Cost""

To jump the gun, many retailers now open on Thanksgiving Day, thus enticing people to leave their homes to shop for bargains instead of sharing their day with loved ones. This practice is changing holiday traditions. The fact is, retailers could stage their sales for any other day less conducive to reducing the importance of a national day -- a day meant for thankful reflection.

Thanksgetting is about products, not people. The products and sale prices drive people to respond in hordes and spend large sums of money -- often causing individuals to buy more than they can afford while mindlessly purchasing products that fuel the insatiable "state of need." Consumers have become so conditioned by retailers and their lust for profits that they actually believe Black Friday and all it entails is a meaningful national observance in itself.

Thanksgetting Origins

The history of the national holiday does reflect commercial and economic concerns. Most people do not realize how consumerism slipped into the American celebration of Thanksgiving.

The modern concept of Thanksgiving is credited to a woman named Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey's Lady's Book and author of the famous "Mary Had a Little Lamb" nursery rhyme, who spent 40 years advocating for a national, annual Thanksgiving holiday.

In the years leading up to the Civil War, Hale saw the holiday as a way to infuse hope and belief in the nation and the Constitution. So, when the United States was torn in half during the Civil War and President Abraham Lincoln was searching for a way to bring the nation together, he discussed the matter with Hale. Prior to this, each state scheduled its own Thanksgiving holiday at different times, mainly in New England and other Northern states.

Thus, Abraham Lincoln became the father of the traditional Thanksgiving commemoration by creating a formal national holiday in an 1863 proclamation. He designated Thanksgiving to be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November by giving thanks for the advantages and privileges of living in a democracy.

However ...

Decades later (1939), Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week, to the third Thursday of November, in part to lengthen the amount of time for holiday shopping. It was determined that most people did their Christmas shopping after Thanksgiving and retailers hoped that with an extra week of shopping, people would buy more.

All the while, many believed that changing a cherished holiday just to appease businesses was not a sufficient reason for change. Atlantic City's mayor derogatorily called November 23 "Franksgiving."

In response to the proposed change, some states still insisted on celebrating Thanksgiving on the last Thursday, so eventually Congress stepped in. On December 26, 1941, less than a month after the attack at Pearl Harbor, Congress passed a law declaring the fourth Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day.

(Jennifer Rosenberg. "How FDR Changed Thanksgiving." history1900sabout.com. 2015.) 

Then, of course, came the advent of the day after Thanksgiving -- Black Friday. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the day after Thanksgiving has been called Black Friday since at least the early 1960s. The explanation typically given for the day's name is that it is the first day of the year that retailers are in the black as opposed to being in the red.

Early citations in the OED also indicate that the term may have originated among police officers and bus drivers, who no doubt would have dreaded this traffic-heavy shopping day.

Thanksgetting, a term for “Thanks-For-What-I’m-Getting,” has become infused in Thanksgiving observance. The Thanksgiving commemoration our forefathers established was meant to honor God and thank Him for His blessings and His grace. That spirit and meaning do survive today ... as does an increased emphasis on sales and buying and money, money, money.

The question pertinent to all is "Do you celebrate Thanksgetting or Thanksgiving?" Do you thrill to monetary exchange or humbly reflect on gracious blessings? Do you prefer to "get" or "give" on this special holiday? It is clear to me that Thanksgiving has sadly morphed into a time when many Americans enter a self-contrived state of need. Thanksgiving Day and the now well-established link to Black Friday -- isn't enough, enough?

Overhead on Thankgiving in American households near you:

Mom, "Sweetheart, hurry up and finish your turkey. It's half an hour until the stores open and we need to start our shopping. We have lots of things we NEED to GET." 

Thanksgiving

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

We walk on starry fields of white
And do not see the daisies;
For blessings common in our sight
We rarely offer praises.

We sigh for some supreme delight
To crown our lives with splendor,
And quite ignore our daily store
Of pleasures sweet and tender.

Our cares are bold and push their way
Upon our thought and feeling.

They hang about us all the day,
Our time from pleasure stealing.

So unobtrusive many a joy
We pass by and forget it,
But worry strives to own our lives
And conquers if we let it.

There's not a day in all the year
But holds some hidden pleasure,
And looking back, joys oft appear
To brim the past's wide measure.

But blessings are like friends, I hold,
Who love and labor near us.

We ought to raise our notes of praise
While living hearts can hear us.

Full many a blessing wears the guise
Of worry or of trouble.

Farseeing is the soul and wise
Who knows the mask is double.

But he who has the faith and strength
To thank his God for sorrow
Has found a joy without alloy
To gladden every morrow.

We ought to make the moments notes
Of happy, glad Thanksgiving;
The hours and days a silent phrase
Of music we are living.

And so the theme should swell and grow
As weeks and months pass o'er us,
And rise sublime at this good time,
A grand Thanksgiving chorus.