[Erin] Black Friday blues

Today's Black Friday, the day that Americans kick off the massive consumption that precedes Christmas every year. I was going to try to say something clever about the whole notion of a day set aside to shop like never before, but reader M_David beat me to it:

It's that day to do our civic duty and drive to the city in our 14mpg SUVs on $3 gas in order to cruise the malls and big box stores for killer deals. This is like our new American Holiday: our Solemnity of Our Lady of Perpetual Growth. Certainly a new holy day of obligation! Putting it all on VISA and getting fast food on the way home caps the day off perfectly.

Bad as Black Friday itself is, there's a new trend that's even worse. From the article:

In the past, holiday shopping on Thanksgiving Day was limited to discount stores like Kmart and Wal-Mart, as well as grocery retailers and 24-hour convenience stores like 7-Eleven Inc. Kmart, operated by Sears Holdings Corp., is taking it one step further, offering for the first time Thanksgiving Day specials on TVs to GPS systems.

"Some people just can't wait until Friday," said Kirsten Whipple, a Sears spokeswoman. "Thanksgiving dinner is done and they have moved on."

Read that last sentence slowly, and you'll understand why I can barely keep my inner (or outer, for that matter) redhead from looking like this. Moved on? As if a single commerce-free day causes so much pain and tension in the American mind that we just can't hack it? As if a day spent with family and friends without the jangling excitement of the mall is just too placid and dull to be contemplated? As if Thanksgiving is simply an inconvenient prelude to the real business of this "holiday" weekend?

What's wrong with our country, that we measure happiness in what we buy? What's wrong, that we find it so important to throng in front of a dingy concrete building in the hopes of saving a handful of dollars on a piece of overpriced electronic equipment that was built for pennies in China by a young worker who can't remember the last time she had a whole day off to enjoy her family? What's wrong with us, that we can't wait until the turkey leftovers have cooled in the fridge before rushing out to take our places in line at a chain store that had the same unattractive and poorly-made merchandise yesterday and will continue to have most of it tomorrow? What's wrong, that we fidget and fume around the Thanksgiving table, unhappily aware that other people are already out there getting all the best deals?

People don't, generally speaking, have fond memories of the time they spent shopping. People seldom say, ten years later, "Oh, I remember that Thanksgiving, don't you? It was the day that we stood in line for six hours, skipped dinner altogether, but got the very last discounted Official Gadget they had in stock! Wasn't it great?" No, the memories we have of good holidays are the memories that center around the most precious things in our lives: the people. The first Thanksgiving with the new baby, the Thanksgiving I met a person who became a friend, the Thanksgiving when we were all together, the last Thanksgiving dear Grandma could be with us (though we visited her yesterday; she didn't really remember us, but she was so pleased to have company), that Thanksgiving with our neighbors who reached out because we were new in town and didn't have family close by. And drifting through our minds, often unspoken, are all the final Thanksgivings we shared with loved ones who are no longer with us on this earth; they are not forgotten, and our memories of the last holidays we spent together are priceless.

To give up all of this in order to save twenty or thirty dollars on a piece of junk that will most likely last less than five years is tragic; but it's a tragedy that's becoming part of the fabric of American life.