Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a happy and fun Thanksgiving. It is wonderful to celebrate with friends and family. Football, food, family, and shopping. I am all about the first three. While it seems most people are about the last one.

Thanksgiving used to be a day that the guys sat around and enjoyed watching the Detroit Lions lose to whomever they were playingand the Dallas Cowboys always seemed to win on Thanksgiving. Of course, who could forget the cheerleaders. Prancing around in their skimpy outfits in the cold. Sorry, I am easily distracted by thinking about that.

It seems that the days leading up to this great national holiday celebrated by the United States and the people of Plymouth, UK are spent figuring out how to get the Thanksgiving dinner on the table and mapping out how to attack the shopping centers at 4 am on "Black Friday" morning.

As soon as the sales ads are sent to the printers, the sales are leaked to a web site that automatically posts the sales. Who will open the earlyist? Who will have that mp3 player or foot massager for the lowest price? Will the toy stores have deep discounts on the lead tainted toys from China? I had to say that. I can't imagine that the toy stores are not looking for a way to unload these items. The deep discounts that lure people in can also be found online. Ninety percent of the items can be bought online without having to go and stand in line and hope that the item doesn't sell out to the person in front of you.

If you do brave the cold you almost certainly have to contend with the people who are there to not only purchase Christmas items, but to start a fight with an old lady, or have an old lady start a fight them. I did here an account that some heated words came at a local Radio Shack where a man tried to cut in line in front of a young lady who would have none of that. She made such a big enough scene, that a person behind her lent his voice to the exchange. No one was hurt or arrested, but sometimes things can get out of hand.

The one thing I hadn't seen on the local news was someone being trampled. It seems that the lead off stories on "Black Friday" are how people were like animals and trampled the little old lady or Tiny Tim who just happened to be there to get their medicine. Of course, this story was probably on our local CBS station, since it is the yellow journalism station in town. I don't watch it so I don't know for sure.

The morning news shows had their reporters stationed at popular stores throughout the city, asking hard hitting questions such as: "Did you get what you came for?" or "Is this your first time coming out early on 'Black Friday'?" NO, I didn't get what I came for and yes I am a "Black Friday" virgin. Thanks for rubbing it in that I am going to have to go pay full price for little Lisa's lap top computer that would make her life easier in college next semster. Thanks again.

So during this holiday of giving thanks for what we have, the media and the retailers have turned it into the starting point for the race to Christmas. Which 99% of the country understands that it is a Christian holiday, by the way. We have to reflect and say thanks to everyone who made this possible. The makers of ant-acids, sleep aides, liquorbeerandwine, and any other fine products that help numb people from the reality that we will be broke, fat slobs when this is all over. Too bad we will give all of that up on News Years Day and let the health nuts shame us into spending more money we don't have on a commitment that we will only keep for two weeks.

We always do it again next Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Oh and by the way I just read that the retail sales were up over 8% from last year. Stupid liberals where is the bad economy?