Rethinking Black Friday (the day after) Thanksgiving and Gratitude

Like most of you, over here we have much to be thankful for, even if we don’t have everything we want. Included on our list are good health in spite of old age, plenty to pay the bills (and then some in spite of inflation) and a gaggle of children and grandchildren who work hard and strive to love one another.

This year, perched at the top of my own gratitude list, though, has to be the image of our seven-year-old granddaughter, who has struggled mightily all of her life with Cystic Fibrosis and who endures daily treatments and meds and shots and the periodic hospitalization. This Thanksgiving, this child was walking around a potluck supper gathering with a spiral notebook and a pen. She was asking everyone who would speak to her (and she is pretty hard to miss with curly red hair) what they were thankful for and then writing that down in her notebook. My heart is certainly full.

In the circle that is our family, I am thankful our grandchildren are being taught already about gratitude. In a larger context, I feel especially hopeful that our nation has set aside one day a year to teach the art of giving thanks. While we love to indulge in our turkey and stuffing and jello salads and football on the fourth Thursday of November, we do also have to admit this is pretty much our ONLY national day of remembering that we are thankful.

Certainly, not everyone insists everyone at the table say somehing they are thankful for before the gravy is passed, but a lot more of us do that on Thanksgiving than on any other day in this country, so, there’s that. Moment of gratitude for our moments of gratitude. You know it carries over. While we were thankful for one another ON that Thursday, on the next day, the Friday, BLACK FRIDAY, we are grateful that we shared our gratitude, that we said it out loud. That’s not all, though While on Thanksgiving we talk about being thankful, our gratitude on the day after Thanksgiving is different.

…our gratitude on the day after Thanksgiving is different.

Sure, we might be thankful that we didn’t have to wait an extra three or four hours for the meal because the yams wouldn’t bake or the rolls wouldn’t rise or the last visitor was late. Or, maybe we are thankful the custard pie “stood up” or that our teenaged grandchild still hugs us or that a chair or two that had been empty too long was filled again for, oh, so many reasons. On Black Friday, we often find that our gratitude has evolved and perhaps even grown significantly. I, for one, have found that I now need to include Black Friday itself on my gratitude list and not because I could, if I wanted, go indulge my shopping habit.

In the past, though, I would say I loathed Black Friday. IMHO, Black Friday was as annoying as Christmas songs being played before Halloween is over, setting up your Christmas tree before Thanksgiving or, yes, the overuse of acronyms. (See above.)

Now I have to admit that Black Friday is the unsung hero of the weekend and perhaps is to be credited with keeping Thanksgiving on the calendar.

Think about it. Thanksgiving on its own struggles to stand out among the fall holidays. Really, other than the nearly extinct cornucopia, there is little to distinguish the holiday. As one comedian put it, there is only one Thanksgiving character and we hunt him down, kill him and eat him. There are no costumes really except those Pilgrims and only one or two songs we sing at school assemblies or maybe in church. A media search for images brings up mostly pumpkins and leaves and maybe a Pilgrims coloring page.

Really, other than the nearly extinct cornucopia, there is little to distinguish the holiday.

I would posit that Thanksgiving itself needs to be grateful for Black Friday. What a boost to Thanksgiving that so many workers get Friday off, for example. Think about it: the whole shopping craze means employers would be hard pressed to take Friday back and make folks work because of the economic bump from Black Friday sales. Without Black Friday, Thanksgiving might fade quickly, becoming that holiday with the funny hats and too much food we used to celebrate. And then where would our national thankfulness be?

Black Friday is the unsung hero really of the weekend, right?

So, this is a bit of Black Friday gratitude (maybe Gratitude with capital “G?”) Thank you, Black Friday, for protecting and preserving the one day a year we all at least think about why we are grateful. I will no longer begrudge you the shopping and endless ads and mayhem and Jingle Bells onslaught. I will no long even complain about the early decorating or the Christmas items that appear on the shelves before Halloween.

We Need You, Black Friday.

Hang in there. Without you, Black Friday, we might just go straight from Halloween to Christmas after all. Without you, I might never have realized how much hope some folks need and derive from all that early decorating, shopping and singing. Most of all, if we did not still have a designated day of gratitude, I would not have this memory to treasure of a seven-year-old, who in spite of the fact tht she was counting down the days until her next dreaded blood draw, was asking total strangers to share their gratitude with her. So, thanks to all that helps us keep this day of Gratitude around, especially Black Friday. I am shopping already for a cornucopia for next year just to do my bit to help keep Thanksgiving (and its protector, Black Friday) around.

Was your gratitude list different after Thanksgiving this year? Leave a reply and share your gratitude today, too.