Hannah Gallucci

THANKSGIVING

            Every fourth Thursday of November, American families gather to feast on turkey, potatoes, and pies while watching any one of the multitude of football games on television.  Although officially declared a holiday by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, the traditions of Thanksgiving stem back to the Puritan people of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1621.  Gathering together with members of the local Wampanoag tribe, the Puritans intended to celebrate their first successful harvest in the New World along with the newfound friendship of the natives.  During the late 1700s, President’s Washington, Adams, and Monroe all proclaimed national Thanksgivings; however, after 1815 the celebration of the holiday was limited to state observances. Between the first celebration in 1621 and Lincoln’s official dedication of the holiday, many states, territories, and towns celebrated “Thanksgiving Days” on their own time and schedule.  These celebrations were a remembrance of those initial first years of struggle faced by the Puritan people and their eventual success in the New World.

Amidst the turmoil of the Civil War, President Lincoln declared in 1863 that a national day of Thanksgiving was to be observed on the last Thursday of the month of November.  After Lincoln’s assassination, successive presidents declared the national observation of the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving; however, the holiday was not a fixed annual event – each president still had to proclaim Thanksgiving each year.  During Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency, he broke from tradition by declaring Thanksgiving the second to last Thursday in order to lengthen the Christmas shopping season.  Two years later, in 1941, Congress permanently established the holiday as the fourth Thursday of November.

In keeping with the remembrance of the early Puritans and Wampanoag, imitations of the original menu include turkey as the primary dish followed by potatoes, cranberries, root vegetables, and pumpkin pie.  As the holiday took root and spread across the country, different regional modifications have been added by necessity.  In the South-West, chilies are used in flavoring and in stuffing; in the Chesapeake Bay region, local crab is often served as an appetizer; in the Midwest wild rice is sometimes substituted in as stuffing; while in Key West key lime pie is often found alongside pumpkin pie.

No matter the food served, Thanksgiving has been traditionally seen as a day to remember and give thanks for the country that has provided Americans with so much.  Honoring some of the first settlers of the land, Thanksgiving is further recognized as a day to remember family and friends (often disregarding the fact that the native friends of the Puritans were later decimated for their land) and the hard work that has gone into creating a nation.  However, in recent decades there has been a significant shift in the focus and meaning of the holiday.  The appearance of Black Friday on the calendars and the beginning advertisement of the Christmas holiday have begun to overshadow the real celebration of Thanksgiving.

Living in a society so focused on maximizing profit and time, the appreciation and celebration of holidays such as Thanksgiving has been devalued.  Seen as an opportunity for mass advertising and consumer spending, companies have begun to use Thanksgiving as a gateway to the Christmas shopping season.  Focusing more on Black Friday rather than Thanksgiving Thursday, American society has shown its lack of care for time spent with family, tradition, and its own history.

To begin, since when did Target and Walmart need to be open at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day?  Do these companies provide necessary medical care or crime protection?  No.  However, they do provide their employees with shorter time to celebrate the day with family and friends.  They exploit the beginning of the winter shopping season by promising limited deals and discounts on merchandise on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday so as to obtain a larger profit.  Where has America’s sense of integrity gone?  Have we become so focused on making money and scoring the best deals that we think it is right to open up retail stores on a day celebrating spending time with family and friends?  Since when have money and material objects become more important?  Although not a retail store, is it even too much to ask St. A’s to have all of Wednesday off?  Is it too much to give students a break from months of work so as to spend one full extra day with their family?  I’m from Minnesota, I haven’t seen my family since August and somehow the school expects me to be able to fly home the day before a national holiday with no delays and have enough time to spend with them?  I really think America needs to take a look at how it views money and time.  Why has it become such a bad thing for stores to close for one day and to give employees a full day off?  Why can’t students be given off more than two days (Thursday/Friday) to travel home and celebrate the holiday; will being in class till 12 p.m. on Wednesday really make that much of a difference?  I don’t think so as most students have mentally checked out by Monday.  For a country that fights so hard to “keep traditional family values intact” we sure do abuse them when it’s profitable for ourselves; wouldn’t taking the time to have a family meal and spend the entire day together be more inclined towards family values rather than standing in line outside Best Buy for six hours on Thanksgiving waiting for an X-Box?

Perhaps what is even worse is the fact that with this emerging norm of blowout sales beginning on Thanksgiving Day, we as a country are completely disrespecting and devaluing the true meaning of what our ancestors accomplished for us.  If it weren’t for the colonist’s hard work and perseverance, America wouldn’t be what it is today.  Through their sacrifice we have been able to grow and prosper, yet instead of taking the time to remember our history, we instead choose to overshadow it with sales and early store hours.  The fourth Thursday of November is slowly turning into a celebration of college football and afternoon sales rather than the celebration of a nation’s prosperity and families.