Shopping ON a major holiday?

Dear Americans,
Please don’t shop on Thanksgiving Day. It only encourages big corporations to make their employees miserable on the one day every American should be able to relax.

There’s a nasty trend of stores beginning their Black Friday sales on the evening of Thanksgiving Day. It’s the time when everyone in the country should be sitting back with their loved ones, digesting the six desserts they couldn’t resist tasting. That’s what Thanksgiving evening is for.


People are being lured to early sales that start before the dinner dishes are even done. Maybe there are bargain-crazed lunatics who’s rather fight crowds than relax, but think of the employees who are forced to work. NO ONE wants to work Thanksgiving night and most stores are not giving any overtime pay or special compensation whatsoever. They’re just requiring their staff to work on the one holiday that should be sacrosant in the U.S. (all the more so because it’s not religious, so we don’t have to tangle about that). Even greedier, some large chain stores are even opening on Thanksgiving morning.

Give it a rest on Thanksgiving, people! Don’t enter a single retail establishment on the holiday, not a Target, not a Walmart, not even a 7-Eleven. Low-wage workers are forced to give up their holidays because we keep running out to the store for one more thing. Stop it.

And definitely don’t say to anyone working on a holiday, “I’m sorry you have to work today,” when you’re standing in their line. They had to leave their family and warm dinners at home and come to work because of YOU.


Please join me in this sentiment, expressed in a Reddit comment by some unknown person who is clearly just as disgusted as I am:

thesilence84 — Decided that we as a family weren’t going to do [Black Friday] this year as a result of the 8pm thing. Thanksgiving was the ONE holiday you couldn’t commercialize. But those stupid fucking big box retailers kept finding ways around it… Pushing the Christmas season further and further back… And now. Black Friday starts on Thursday at 8pm. You know what? Fuck you and your goddamn greed. I’m done. I’ll spend 20 extra bucks and not freeze my ass off and spend time with my family instead. I hope it flops miserably.

Comments

  1. classikal says:

    Right on! I refuse to shop the entire weekend. But it's really important to show the retailers that FAMILIES are more important that profits.

  2. Regina Rodriguez-Martin says:

    Dear Mick, thanks for asking. Thanksgiving Day commemorates the gratitude felt by the earliest white people who settled in North America. Those were English people, or as we call them "pilgrims," who celebrated their survival in this tough environment by having a feast which they allegedly shared with some of the native North American people who helped them. We call that the first Thanksgiving. The fourth Thursday of every November is celebrated in the U.S. with huge gluttonous eating, reflecting on what we're grateful for, family closeness and lots of drinking when you get sick of your family. It should never, NEVER have been turned into another commercial opportunity, forcing workers to give up this one holiday that all Americans – red and blue, left and right – have historically respected and observed religiously for decades.

  3. Mick & Cathy says:

    What is Thanksgiving Day ?
    What is it to celebrate ?
    Its something we don't have over here.

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