Thanksgiving and Black Friday

This week (11/19-11/26) is the busiest travel week in the U.S. calendar. Thanksgiving Day on Thursday (11/22) is America’s biggest travel day (37 million Americans) and the most celebrated holiday in the U.S. calendar. Thanksgiving is for Americans what Christmas is to the Irish. Airports, train stations and roads are packed with folks heading home for the holiday to hearth and family.
Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday. Families gather around their dining tables with their best linen and stuff their faces full of turkey, cranberry sauce (don’t ask me); sweet potatoes (yams), with pumpkin pie for desert (not as bad as it sounds).
Thanksgiving Day began with the pilgrims celebrating the end of the harvest. American’s tend to believe that the U.S. was settled by the persecuted Christian refugees whose legacy is felt beyond Thanksgiving to the political present. The Christian conservatives that dominate the White House and Middle America hark on back to their original pilgrim roots at every opportunity.
Thanksgiving Day is also associated with street parades all over the States with the biggest being the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. Macy’s being the famous department store on 34th Street in Manhattan, made famous by the 1947 movie Miracle on 34th Street (staring Maureen O’Hara). The parade boasts huge balloons in the shape of cartoons and the size of small buildings.
Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day of the year. The American family begins its two month long prayer ritual to consumerism. Families all over the U.S., enticed by huge store (shop) discounts go out and spend massive globs of money on red and white Christmas sweaters with snowmen on the front.
Typically, stores like K-mart and Macy’s start their holiday sales huge discounts in order to attract large lines (queues) outside their stores when they open. Retail competition is so tight that some stores open at 12.00 am Thursday night and folks spend their evening sleeping in front of the store to get those early bargains.