To the Readers' Forum:
Thanksgiving is supposed to be a day for remembering the many good things we've got to be thankful for in our blessed land, but lately some retailers seem bound and determined to help us forget what we've already got, and get us to focus on what we don't have - and how urgent it is to run out and buy on sale now!
I'm talking about those who open their doors on Thanksgiving to attract bargain hunters. This totally violates the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday because it encourages not an appreciation for past and present blessings, but a restless longing and desiring after things we don't have. Thanksgiving is a good holiday and its original intent, thanks-giving, should be encouraged, and it's diametric opposite, covetousness, should be discouraged.
It does the soul good to take the opportunity, at least once a year on Thanksgiving, to appreciate what good things we've got and how thankful we are in having them. The Pilgrims did this that first Thanksgiving in thanking God for his many blessings, and generations of Americans have followed the same tradition each year since then. But the holiday of Thanksgiving is under assault today by retailers for cold commercial gain. Isn't the day after Thanksgiving, so-called Black Friday, a good enough time to aggressively attract holiday shoppers into stores for bargains and sales? Couldn't advertising, marketing and commercials continue targeting this day to officially launch the Christmas shopping season? Why must the Thanksgiving holiday itself now be included in the push for greater sales?
We live in a free country, and businesses and individuals can do as they please, on Thanksgiving or any other day. But I'd like to encourage retailers to keep their doors closed on the Thanksgiving holiday, and consumers to opt out of shopping for bargains on Thanksgiving also. Let's not lose the point and purpose of Thanksgiving to either make a buck or two, or save a few bucks. It's worth keeping the Thanksgiving holiday a time of thanks-giving, instead of turning it into a shopping spree! Like I said before, Thanksgiving bargain shopping is a bad idea all around. It takes away from the very meaning of Thanksgiving.
Pastor Jeff Short
Jamestown