Thanksgiving Day -- thanking God for the harvest, gathering with family and friends to enjoy a parade, a feast and football, getting ready for the year's biggest shopping day, but what other traditions does the week encourage?
Thanksgiving eve is more than the night before the big day. Workers look forward to a long weekend and college kids are back in their hometowns for the first time of the fall semester. This results in the somewhat dubious distinction of the busiest night of the year for bars and pubs in the northeast United States. There are web guides to pre-Thanksgiving parties that are a-night-on-the-town variety rather than the comfort and coziness of a visit home.
Friday after Thanksgiving finds much of the US population enjoying a day off of work and preparing for a big gift-giving season. The highest customer traffic day, generally known as Black Friday, also brings out another demographic. Protesters against gross consumerism and materialism refrain from purchasing anything for 24 hours on Buy Nothing Day.
So party and feast and go shopping (or not), but enjoy this vacation week by following your own traditions and maybe starting some new ones.
technorati tags: thanksgiving, thanksgivingeve, blackfriday, buynothingday
