With Thanksgiving coming tomorrow, I’m sure half of what you’ll see on the internet for the rest of the week will be some form of scolding.
But holidays aren’t really about whatever original contextual symbolism they held. Many who celebrate Christmas don’t even believe in Christ. Many who celebrate Easter don’t believe in resurrection. Many who take MLK day off hate everything he stood for. And on and on, endlessly.
Holiday are just excuses for us to not need to work. Excuses for us to get together with family and/or friends. There really doesn’t need to be any deeper meaning than that. You can hate what a holiday represents and still enjoy your day off while you eat and drink with friends and family.
It doesn’t need to mean more than that.
You’re just a person. Give yourself a break. Enjoy your day off.
But this is also the tragedy of Black Friday, a manufactured holiday that gives no one any benefits of a holiday. Rather than getting the day off, our retail workers are forced to work even longer hours. Rather than spending time with family and friends, everyone is filling malls and stores, fighting for elbow room while you hunt for deals.
Some will encourage you to shop local or only spend at small shops, to use your Black Friday or Small Business Saturday or Cyber Monday to shop in your community, but you know what would really make a difference?
Just stay home. Don’t spend any money. Don’t go fill stores, local and small or big and corporate. Don’t encourage small businesses to fall in line by slashing their prices and staying open extra long this Saturday.
Black Friday has come to colonize the entire month and you can do most of it right from your couch. I started getting Black Friday deal notifications weeks ago.
Anyway, just enjoy your holiday. Eat too much. Drink too much. Yell at your dad or get yelled at by him. Then spend this Friday and Saturday just hanging out.
Oh, but if you’re gonna buy something, buy my books.
As always, I’d very much appreciate if you rated and reviewed these on Amazon.
This is absolute hogwash and you know it. I long for the day Christmas is no longer allowed for heathens and Thanksgiving and the 4th of July are consigned to the dustbin of history where they belong. And you all will wail and gnash your teeth. And you'll come to me and look up and shout "Save us by showing us how to cope when your holiday is destroyed because a bunch of assholes decided that it should be held to the standard of its original intention!" And I'll look down and whisper "no."
And you and your ilk will write your poems. "First they came for Columbus Day, and I did not speak out, because I don't like Italians. They're greasy and they constantly smell of garlic." And I'll laugh and laugh.
Thank you! Every time I see someone online "reminding" people of the horrors behind the Thanksgiving story, I have to resist the urge to scream at them to just *enjoy the day off*, which is the primary thing 9 in 10 of us are celebrating. Maybe I'll feel differently if I ever have more than a week of paid vacation in a year, but I doubt it.
My obligations tomorrow are to drink coffee, put on some American music, cook, eat, take a nap, eat, watch a couple movies, eat, and read. It will be a day full of the things I enjoy. This is the very best holiday.