The day after Thanksgiving in the USA is dubbed “Black Friday”. Although officially that is referring to the coffers of businesses being filled to the brim thanks to holiday shopping, it also could describe the general mood of the shoppers after hours of fighting crowds at 10 different stores for that last parking spot/sale item/shopping cart/space in line. “Black Friday” could also be a prophetic declaration of how one will feel about their bank account on “Second-thought Saturday”.
Every year the competition gets more out of control to lure shoppers in, and win their dollars. I remember when businesses would actually open their doors at their usual time. But, then someone got the “bright idea” to open up a little earlier than everyone else, and perhaps offer a “loss leader” [really big sale item] so that shoppers would BE SURE to come to their store first! Of course, it snowballed from there into earlier and earlier openings (6 am, 4 am, 3 am…midnight). NOW, stores have decided to simply stay open 24/7 starting on Thanksgiving Day and calling it the “Black Thursday Weekend” or some such nonsense. Many employees are (rightfully) upset about this. Some are even threatening to go on strike.
In the words of Charlie Brown…
It feels the new message is that “Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men” is meant to happen AFTER we worship the God of Commercialism.
Alright, that’s it! It’s time to unleash my “Mom Power”. I’m putting my foot down, Drawing a line in the sand, and Taking a Stand – “once and for all”! This year, our household is choosing to boycott the chaos of the Day After Thanksgiving, and I have declared it:
FAMILY FRIDAY
~~~
Here is what we have on our “non-shopping list“
- Sleeping in
- Eating breakfast together – featuring Dad’s Omelette Scramble.
- Putting up our Christmas decorations and trimming the tree.
- Taking a long walk together with the dog
- Playing some of our favorite games: Monopoly, Sorry, Dominoes, Uno, Skip-bo, Rack-O [huh, I never noticed how many “O” games there are until just now, did you?]
- Reading books / listening to music / relaxing
- Eating dinner together [consisting of all our Thanksgiving feast leftovers]
- Watching a movie that we rented
- Singing songs together
- Praying together
- Family Hug and Tuck-in-bed Time [yes, our kids are age 21 & 18 now, but we still do this nightly ritual with whoever is at home. Sometimes, we even trade off and they tuck Mr. Mo and me into bed]
🙂
Latter-day Soprano 
sounds wonderful. Hope you enjoy every minute of it!!!! Love mother
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Hi MO,
I have thought that Christians should gather ourselves in protest and change the celebrated date of Christ’s birth to June 25.
Decmember 25 could then be recognised by commercial interests and “Happy Holiday” folks as National Gift Giving Day.
Mary was visted by the angel in Elizabeth’s 6th month, but that does not give us a clue as to the day in the ancient Hebrew calendar or in the Roamn calendar that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
If we did this, I would recommend a new tradition. We would leave the tradition of Saint Nicolas brining gifts as a non-Christian focus, and focus the new Christmas Day on giving to relieve pain, suffering, poverty, and oppression. In the words of Mike Slaughter, “Christmas Is Not Your Birthday.”
Think about advent beginning June 1. A much better month to travel to family. The children out of school. July 4 comes just ten days after the new Christmas Day. The twelve days of Christmas would take on a new meaning in American culture, June 24, Christmas Eve to July 4.
GW Bill Warren
In God We Trust
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Hi Bill,
Great thoughts! I love the “Christmas is not your birthday” quote. Of course, in our forever capitalistic society, I don’t think there would be any way to stop some sort of marketing for whatever date was chosen to celebrate. However, you are spot on about Jesus’ actual birthday not being December 25th.
You may find it interesting to note that in Latter-day Saint doctrine, we believe that Jesus’ true birthday was revealed to the prophet Joseph Smith as April 6th. As such, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was formally organized on April 6, 1830, and we have held a spring General Conference of the Church on or near that date ever since. We do not formally celebrate this date – (we celebrate on Dec. 25th as custom) however, we do acknowledge April 6th as a special day. A BBC special I saw once about the life of Jesus made note that many biblical scholars concur that the Savior’s birth would have been in the Springtime, due to many factors – one of which is the notable tip that the shepherds were “watching their flocks by night” which most likely was referring to lambing season when they took special care to watch over the ewes to make sure the lambs were birthed safely.
Thanks for reading, and for your ever insightful comments – MoSop
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