Black Friday.

Here it comes once again... that monster shopping day known from the rocky coast of Maine to the sandy coast of California, and all points inbetween.   Black Friday.

I have just one thing to say:  Give me a blessed break.

There isn't a bone in my body that wants to go shopping on the day after Thanksgiving.  Not shopping for groceries, and certainly not shopping for Christmas gifts.  I've never been out in that Black Friday madness, nor do I ever intend to go.

And, just a thought..... doesn't it strike you as odd that people rush into retail stores the minute they unlock the doors, along with thousands of other midnight-shoppers, with no thought of civility or politeness or kindness.... just so they can buy more things the very day after Thanksgiving when they have said "Grace" over a family meal and counted their blessings for all that they already have?!  

What bothers me most is that in the midst of all this shopping madness, which either starts at midnight on Thanksgiving evening or at dawn on Thanksgiving morning, the entire sense of the holiday is being lost. Forever lost and forgotten and pushed aside as if it were just another day of the year.  Before too long, the generations coming up won't be celebrating anything except the opening of a new retail store.

Thanksgiving will be a memory.... so will Christmas Day.  Only in the smallest of the small towns do shop-owners lock their doors and stay home with their families so their employees can stay home and enjoy the day with their families. 

Money is the deciding factor here, and the bottom line.  If these huge retail stores can make good money by opening extra hours on holiday-days, then they're going to unlock their doors at all hours.  And the reason they make such money is that so many hundreds of thousands, and thousands of millions of people are willing to fight over parking spaces and argue over places on line.... all to get whatever gift is state-of-the-art or trend-of-the-moment.  And stores will continue to be open on holidays because there are always people willing to shop and buy and shop more and buy more.

I liked it better when stores were closed on days like Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's....... when everyone believed in the special-ness of certain days.... when you knew that if your Christmas shopping wasn't done by 3:00 on Christmas Eve afternoon, then it wasn't going to get done because the stores would close early.