Thankful Friday

      Black Friday! I won’t be doing any shopping today. Well, maybe at the liquor store, but I doubt they’ll be having a sale. I don’t really get the whole Black Friday thing. Thankful one day and greedy the next? It seems like such a bunch of corporate hogwash. Plus, I can’t believe people would want to wake up early and deal with all of that. It seems like such a sham, and people seem to just eat it up. Also, now that we’re having Black Friday Weekend, and Black Friday Month, it seems to have lost a little of it’s umph. I wonder if people ever even stop and think why they call it “Black” Friday? It feels like such a slap in the face for them to lower their prices just to help them get into the “Black.” They artificially raise their prices all year long, that’s what I see. I don’t understand why more people aren’t bothered by the fact that prices could be lower all the time. You’d probably sell a lot more, a lot more often, if your prices were reasonable regularly. Now I have suspicion that some people are probably putting off large purchases until “Black Friday.” It makes me wonder if the stores know ahead of time what they’ll place on sale, or if they wait every year to see what didn’t fly off the shelves, and put their overstock on sale. I don’t know, it doesn’t really affect me, I wouldn’t be shopping today anyway. I only really know anything about it because of all the commercials. And, I don’t really like being negative, but it makes me wonder about my fellow humans. It concerns me that they would want to spend their time doing that. It concerns me that people seem to be these pawns in this corporate game, and they don’t even see it. It concerns me that corporate greed is so prevalent that they put these games together to help themselves, all the while convincing these pawnish consumers that they are the ones who are in fact being “helped.”

     Sorry, I really don’t like being “Daughn the Downer,” but I do dislike things, and sometimes, maybe more often than not, it’s things that other people do like. Especially because I really like Thanksgiving. I think Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I like the food. I wait for it all year. I like that there’s no religious connotation. I like that there aren’t gifts involved. Hanging out, having food, and being thankful. That’s my jam! But when they start adding consumerism into everything, it kind of bums me out. The world is not going to stop if we take one weekend off from the constant barrage of “buy, buy, buy,” and just be thankful. Plus, I take thankfulness very seriously. I think way too many of us are not thankful enough. I feel it’s important to remind ourselves of that. I wish it happened more often, although then it might not be such a big deal. It needs to be made a big deal. We have so much more than so many people, and it just feels like Thanksgiving, the actual giving of thanks, is being overshadowed by binge shopping and crowded airports. Now a lot of people are getting a 4-day weekend. So, people trying to get ahead of the game are now leaving early, practically giving themselves a 5-day weekend. Are we heading towards Thanksgiving Week? If so, are we going to actually spend that time with our friends and family being thankful, or are we going to spend most of that time traveling and shopping, and still only have 1 good meal? Some people seem to treat the holiday with some kind of obligation. Families fight. Not mine. Things you can’t talk about. Why go? I’m so glad that the people who attend our Thanksgiving are genuinely glad to see each other. We are actually happy to be there with each other. And yeah, there are a few things I probably wouldn’t say to my mother-in-law, but it’s out of respect.

     We had a good time. The food was excellent. I was glad to get to spend time with our daughter. She works so much we don’t really get to see her that much. It was a little awkward again because it was basically my family and my mother-in-law. At her house! No football. She doesn’t have cable. That’s okay. We focused more on conversation. It just left me curious. My mother-in-law has a live-in boyfriend, it still feels a little weird to say that about people in their 60’s. He didn’t stay. I’m not bothered by that. There were actually a couple of incidents recently that made me think that I’d have to watch my tone around him. I had this imagination of me letting him know how I felt during the prayer. But I instantly knew that would not be cool, so by the time we got there, I had already reserved myself to letting it go for this holiday. But, it did get me wondering, would my mother-in-law have gone with him if we weren’t coming over? The whole time we were eating, well maybe not the whole time, but often, I found myself wondering: if we weren’t there, would she be alone? There’s some weirdness about their relationship, especially as it relates to his family. I don’t know, I don’t ask, I’m not sure answers would be given. I’m not sure answers are known. She would definitely be invited to my parent’s for Thanksgiving, so I know she wouldn’t be “alone.” But still, that seemed like a lot of work to do for other people. I know she likes to cook. I know she likes a full house. However, I found myself wondering: did she do all of this, just for us? I wasn’t sure if she turned down her boyfriend’s invitation. I don’t know if she got an invitation. The only person I can talk to about it is my wife, but she doesn’t have that much information either.