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| Joe Contento thinking about Black Friday! |
Families are now being ripped away from their thanksgiving Dinner on "Blue Thursday" a glass of wine in hand, mouth full with sweet Potato pie, their children screaming as they hasten toward the door at 5:00 PM during thanksgiving dinner, relatives who travel from more normal places where workers are not forced to work on thanksgiving day "Grey Thursday" sit dismayed with open mouth wondering, what next?. Will what next be if this mother of 3 young children or single father or grand mother does not yield to the demand of her Retailer Employer and does not show up for work on thanksgiving day, will the Store Security show up with handcuff?. Wow!
Think about it! a few short years ago thanksgiving was a cherished Holiday for Family and friends travelling brave distances to huddle together, giving thanks for and including the prosperity we enjoy sharing memories of the immediate past and then some. The tables were well decorated the food sometimes was more beautiful than tasty but always well received, conversation most often straggled into unintended directions unearthing old feelings best kept ---------, but that's thanksgiving old wounds get open the old uncle or the disgruntled brother again promise not to return to another thanksgiving dinner again. But, a year is a long time and wounds heal and here we are again because Grandma is 85 years old this year and will not be around much longer to remain in her Will presence at thanksgiving is a must.
There are young ones meeting the next generation for the first time making friends and lifetime enemies at age's 5-7 that never lasted until the next thanksgiving, those were the old days. Girls for the first,second or third time see grandmother make the famous Potato pie that their mother tries at home and never get right, having a chance to set the silverware only used at thanksgiving for the past 40 years always reminded by grandmother, be careful, I cannot replace those things now!.
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| Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner |
There is football and horseshoe the beer and other boos in the Den, the Thanksgiving tradition open family discussion and occasional whispering among family favorites.The thought about Black Friday shopping was
only a second thought after dinner with the Table clean Grandmas silverware all washed, dried and stored and the women with a glass of wine, a cup of tea the occasional cranky aunt with a Brandy gather to talk about black Friday.
Some places that we knew before hurricane Sandy have washed away and will never be restored, one home in a Family on Staten Island for over 80 years is gone and not even the spot where the house was built no longer exist.This year 2012 may be the binning of something else the Death of Thanksgiving day as we know it. Retailers have signaled the death of an American Tradition.
In the United States, the modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition is commonly, but not universally, traced to a poorly documented 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts. The 1621 Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was prompted by a good harvest.
In later years, religious thanksgiving services were declared by civil leaders such as Governor Bradford who planned a thanksgiving celebration and fast in 1623. The practice of holding an annual harvest festival like this did not become a regular affair in New England until the late 1660's.
Pilgrims and Puritans who began emigrating from England in the 1620's and 1630's carried the tradition of Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving with them to New England. Several days of Thanksgiving were held in early New England history that have been identified as the "First Thanksgiving", including Pilgrim holidays in Plymouth in 1621 and 1623, and a Puritan holiday in Boston in 1631.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(Canada)
Other countries that celebrate Thanksgiving Day includes Canada, Germany, Korea, The Netherlands, Japan and others.............
