Time to re-run an old Thanksgiving post of mine. HOPE I DON'T BREAK THE INTERNET. This originally was posted back in 2008, just after our Thanksgiving that year. My comments from today, as always, are in red.
If you want a unique take on Thanksgiving in the form of wildly creative short stories not a single one of which actually involves a family sitting down to eat Thanksgiving dinner, check out my "Some Thanksgiving Stories" which is available for free on Amazon through Black Friday. You'll meet my newest favorite character, "the regular mouse." And there may or may not be a savage horde of beets with swords. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD IT NOW FREE.
And now on with your old post for you to leave a generically bland comment about because you only read about 1/3 of the way through, said "How the #*#$%;$ long is this thing?" and then went to read "Beetle Bailey" instead. That Sarge! Beetle makes him SO ANGRY.
Hark! The Thumping Potatoes... Make Change For A $20.
The sounds of the holidays, in our house, include things that you would not hear elsewhere, sounds like the soothing tones of Foghat blasting out Christmas music accompanied by the pounding beat of potatoes being thrown across the room. Also, there was a Thanksgiving pageant in which Sweetie played two parts.
Pageants have always played a big role in my holidays, so it was nice to welcome them back this year. When I was younger, we regularly put on Christmas pageants not just at the Catholic school we attended for a while, but also at home for all the aunts and uncles who would come over and subtly mock us while we put on the Christmas pageants. My memories of those pageants, both official and un-, are somewhat hazy. But I know that for one, I was the Christmas star: a fat kid with crooked glasses holding up a giant star covered in tinfoil and ringed with garland reciting a poem for the whole Church and for the whole family Christmas gathering.
"Christmas Star" was one of my few starring roles -- pun intended -- as a kid. The other starring role was "narrator" at a choir concert in fourth or fifth grade, during which the whole school sang while I stood uncomfortably in front of them and in between songs gave little introductions for the songs. I was, even at an early age, marked as "not leading man material," except for that year that I was the Christmas Star, and even that wasn't really a "leading man" type of role. You can't see Brad Pitt or Harrison Ford playing "Christmas Star" in a major motion picture, can you? Although that would be excellent: " Christmas Star," the story of a Hollywood celebrity whose ego gets too big, so, to teach him a lesson, an angel makes him into the ACTUAL Christmas star, where he witnesses the birth of Jesus and learns a valuable lesson about what's REALLY important. Starring Brad Pitt as "The Star," and featuring Dame Judi Dench in a double role, as the head of "Herod Productions" and as Queen Herod at the Nativity.
I am aware that I am not quite accurate on who was at the Nativity. I'm also aware that so far this really isn't a Thanksgiving post at all.
The leading man role in the Christmas pageants my mom put on when we were kids was played usually by my younger brother, Matt, who was recognized as leading man material early on, despite having really no acting ability whatsoever. Matt starred not just as Joseph in the family Christmas pageants, but also as whatever leading role there happened to be in the middle school musicals that were put on every year in the spring. So while I muddled through my own middle school years in roles such as "Lord Growlie" in "The Wizard of Oz," and "Innkeeper" in Annie, Get Your Gun, (and as a Munchkin who was part of the Lollipop Guild, making me the biggest, fattest, glasses-wearing-est Munckin in the history of theater), Matt became "Narrator" in The Fantasticks, a role that he played tongue-in-cheek-- quite literally, as whenever he wasn't talking, Matt would stick his tongue in his cheek, something that you could see easily when the stage was the gym floor and the audience sat in bleachers around it.
Of course, I may just be jealous because Matt got all the girls. Girls always want to date the leading man. The Christmas Star gets very few groupies.
None, actually. Gets none.
For the home pageants the stage was our living room, or at least that portion of the living room between the Christmas tree and the dining room, next to the yellow chairs and in front of the glass coffee table.
It occurred to me as I read this that in the 19 years I lived at home, my parents never rearranged the furniture. Never. I can still remember the exact layout of furniture in our house and it didn't move an iota during my entire childhood. I change my house around all the time. I've lived in our current house for 11 years and I bet I've had 10 different living room setups in that time. The latest includes a hammock, but technically that is there to replace the swing that we couldn't have any longer. I think it's weird to never rearrange your furniture. My parents were weird.
As Christmas Star, I stood in between the tree and the yellow chairs and made my speech, and then Matt and my cousin Shannon would enter as Mary and Joseph, and my cousin Jason had a role, too, and some years also I would double as a wise man with my cousin Joey and my brother Bill, three wise men wearing bathrobes
Why are bathrobes a thing? People wear them over pajamas, right? Why do that? I suppose if your pajamas are scandalous or something you want to wear a robe over them but if the pajamas are just ordinary pajamas do you still wear a robe over them? When we were kids we had bathrobes that we wore over pajamas that were pants-and-shirts combos. That's like wearing an overcoat around the house, but one made of terrycloth. Nowadays I mostly wear pajamas (no robe!) around the house if it's too cold for shorts. I don't want to lounge around in jeans anymore. Jeans are uncomfortable. It's all pajamas for me from here on out. That's one of the great things about being 45, almost 46. You can just wear pajamas and not worry about whether anyone thinks you're a dork, because everyone thinks you're a dork already, whether or not you wear pajamas.
over their Christmas pants and shirts, entering from near the front door to take the gifts of the magi to the Baby Jesus, represented by a bundle of something held by Shannon, while Joseph looked bored and stuck his tongue into his cheek. Then we would all get out of costume and prepare to play the holiday songs that we had diligently practiced on our various instruments: I played piano, Bill played acoustic guitar, and Joey played saxophone. Not all together -- we weren't a jazz combo. Instead, one at a time we'd haltingly pick our way through a couple of songs, the family would clap, and then we'd be free to go off and talk about how we hoped we got an Atari 2600 that year.
PS I am fairly sure eventually this gets around to Thanksgiving.
Holidays for me now are a much more relaxed affair, so relaxed that this was the first time I've ever had the kids put on a pageant. They didn't perform for the family, though; they performed to teach them a Valuable Lesson, something I tried because it came up on the Wheel of Parenting, which is the mental image that I get when I consider the various parenting techniques I try to prepare the kids to take on the world successfully: a giant wheel just like the "Wheel of Fortune," only it has, instead of dollar amounts, parenting methods: Kind-But-Firm. Yelling. Take Away Privileges. The Dad on "Leave It To Beaver."
Interestingly, on my Wheel of Parenting, there is still Lose A Turn. And Bankrupt.
So yesterday, when a fight erupted while I was cooking Alternate Thanksgiving
Told you! There it is, only 14,000 words in: Thanksgiving!
dinner, I moved on from the earlier parenting method I'd spun up (Sarcastic Comments Hollered from the Kitchen) and instead landed on Overly Dramatic Teaching Method.
I'd used up Sarcastic Comments Hollered From The Kitchen while peeling potatoes, something I did accompanied by the sounds of Foghat. I was listening to Foghat because I was playing Christmas music in the background. I'd have dialed up some Thanksgiving music, but the only "Thanksgiving music" I know of is the song "Alice's Restaurant," and I really wasn't in the mood for that. I was in the mood for Foghat, and specifically for Foghat Christmas music.
You know, what with it being Thanksgiving and all.
10 pounds of potatoes wasn't even daunting to me. 10 pounds of potatoes, for me, is a walk in the park. This is because I was prepared as a kid by my parents for such things as peeling potatoes. My parents prepared me for all kinds of things as a kid: peeling potatoes, someday having a job and responsibilities of my own, and, of course, how to deal with the fact that every person in the world is just waiting to steal your wallet, rape you, and murder you and your entire family. (Step one: put your wallet in your front pocket when you go into the big city. That stops them cold: they can't move on to rape and murder if they can't get your wallet first.)
I'm never sure that even with the Wheel of Parenting Method I'm actually preparing the kids for life, because instead of the things that my parents did, I do things like let them sleep in a little while I started preparing Alternate Thanksgiving dinner, something I allowed them to do this day until Mr Bunches intervened and forced me to get them up.
I didn't let them sleep in because I'm nice or was being kind; those two slots rarely come up on the Wheel of Parenting. No, I let them sleep in because I wanted to hear my music while I cooked dinner-that-was-actually-lunch because we were eating at 11:30, and I let them sleep in because the holidays tend to increase the friction between The Boy and Middle, resulting in the kind of dumb fights that they would, in fact, have later on thatday, and I didn't want that. I wanted to stay in a good mood and peel potatoes and jam out to Foghat,
I'm so cool.
both of which got harder when Mr Bunches discovered what I was doing, and discovered that potatoes made a good, solid, thumping sound when you throw them.
I was sitting in the kitchen by the garbage can, peeling the potatoes and whipping right through them, something I could do because, as I said, my parents prepared us for adulthood, prepared us better than we could suspect, given that my adulthood actually does include peeling 10 pounds of potatoes on a Saturday morning. I couldn't have expected as a kid that potato peeling skills would be necessary as an adult. Somehow, though, Mom and Dad seemed to understand that kind of thing was in my future, because we peeled potatoes constantly when I was a kid. At least, that's what it seems like, looking back. Every day, it feels like, there I'd be: peeling potatoes at the kitchen sink and looking out the window wistfully at the backyard, where I could be playing if I didn't have to peel potatoes. We probably didn't even eat potatoes every day; Mom probably just had us peel the potatoes to build character or teach us to be self-sufficient, or as a cost-saving mechanism that we would inevitably misunderstand, the way I misunderstood when she hollered at us about crushing up the milk cartons before we threw them away.
"You have crush them up and put them in the garbage," she'd said, stomping it down viciously and then putting it into the garbage can. "Otherwise, they take up too much space in the can."
From that lecture, I took this: We are too poor to afford to buy garbage bags! I did try to crush the milk cartons after that, but not because Mom and Dad said to do it. I crushed them to avoid us having to live on the streets, because I knew that would be embarrassing.
That's why, by the way, I don't worry too much about my parenting methods and/or changing my parenting methods randomly. I know that whatever method I choose, the kids will inevitably entirely misunderstand or misinterpret the message, the way they misinterpret my telling them about the time I nearly failed Chemistry in college, a story I tell them to show them the importance of studying: Study, I tell them, because if you don't, you might be like me and have an "F" in Chemistry before your final exam, so you will have to stay up all night reading 17 chapters of the textbook you were SUPPOSED to be reading all along, because you will need to get an "A" on the final just to pass the class.
"Did you pass the class?" they ask me.
"Yes," I say. "I got that A on the exam, but I wish I'd studied harder and didn't have to risk it."
"What grade did you get for the class?" they ask me.
"A D," I say. "See?" I add. "That's why you've got to study."
The point of the story from my perspective is "learn from my mistakes: study so you don't have to cram just to barely pass a test, and instead actually get some value out of your education and make your life easier." But what the kids take from it is first, you got a D so I can't be expected to do any better and second plus it's possible to pass a class by half-assing the studying part and cramming at the end.
It doesn't matter how hard you parent. It's not going to work. Even kids raised by wolves will misinterpret what the wolves teach them and eventually stop trying to kill sheep and go off to be chiropractors.
Mom and Dad would never have let us sleep in while they peeled the potatoes, no matter how hard Foghat was rockin'. That's just one of the many things I do differently from them and from other parents. Other things I do differently include letting Mr F and Mr Bunches walk around the kitchen while I'm preparing a dinner/lunch that includes the two turkeys that were not fully thawed out before I had to start cooking them. I hadn't even remembered to start thawing them until the night before at about 7 p.m., and I'd had to start cooking them at 7:30 a.m. the next day. They were still partially frozen when I stuck them in the oven, each in their own little disposable tinfoil pan. They barely fit into the oven together, which caused me some concern, too, because there was no time to cook two turkeys one after the other, so it's a lucky thing I was able to cram them in, bending the foil pans only a little. Well, a lot. But they fit in. That's the important thing.
I don't remember why I was cooking two turkeys. It might have been because by the time we went to buy our turkey, only smaller ones were available. I might also have been unsure of how big a turkey might fit in our oven and bought small. I am not very good at Thanksgiving.
Later, as I was desperately trying to finish up the rest of the meal while the guests -- Dad and Grandma and Grandpa and Sweetie's sister and kids -- milled around drinking coffee and eating the Chex Mix I had grudgingly put out for them, Oldest and The Boy commented that I had messed up because I was cooking the meal that morning. They told Sweetie that if it were them, they would have cooked the entire dinner the night before.
I added that to the mental list I keep of Reasons I Will Never Eat Dinner at the Kids' Houses and kept going with the dual turkeys, etc.
I'd had to wake the kids up while peeling potatoes because Mr F and Mr Bunches were roaming around the kitchen and dining room while I cooked and were starting to be too interfere-y. I was able to live with Mr F throwing the chairs to the ground. He can not stand to see a chair standing upright. We have five kitchen chairs and if Mr F is in the dining room, all five must be laying on their backs or sides. He doesn't even care that this makes it more difficult for him to get around. He comes in, throws the chairs down, and then roams around looking for other things to throw, stepping and stumbling over the chairs.
Throwing things down is his hobby, and he's getting better at it. He used to just take things and drop them to hear the sound they made -- soft like a pillow, clanking like the little drain piece from the bathtub.Now, he hurls them, and he's fast, like he was Friday night when he walked into the kitchen and whipped an arm out and knocked my can of soda onto the ground. I stopped baking pies to clean that up, putting the remainder of the can of soda on the other counter, only to finish mopping the spill up at the same time as Mr F threw the remainder of the can down on the other side of the kitchen. Then, while I began cleaning that up, he grabbed the bowl of cat food off the counter and whipped that down, which had to be a nirvana-like experience for him, as it resulted in a giant clang from the bowl, thousands of tiny little clicks from the cat food, and a howl of despair from me.
Saturday morning, he was content with throwing the kids' trophies off the bookshelf and knocking over chairs. Mr Bunches was bored and came into the kitchen where I was peeling potatoes, and began throwing those, enjoying the thump! thump! thump! they made. But he was slowing me down and interfering with my hearing Foghat, so I began calling for Middle, who had been sleeping in but who now had to get up to do her jobs, which were (a) supervise the twins and (b) clean the bathroom.
It went like this:
Thump! And I'd holler: "Time to get up and get the babies!"
Thump! Me: "Time to get up and get the babies away from the potatoes!"
Thump! Me: "I better hear the sound of people getting out of bed and getting the babies!"
Thump! Me: "Let's get moving before I decide to reassign the potato peeling!"
Thump! Me: "For every potato he throws I'm charging a dollar." ("Make a profit off punishment" had come up on the Wheel Of Parenting.)
Thump! Me: "Mr Bunches, come on! Go throw something somewhere else!"
Finally, Middle had come down and taken the Babies! downstairs so I was able to check on the slowly-thawing turkeys and get The Boy going on his job, which was "deep-frying onion and apple rings/complaining about random things," (the latter one not assigned; he opted to take that on willingly) but the stress of the holidays and of doing a chore must have gotten to both of them, because shortly before guests arrived, the fight broke out and I was forced to do some Real Parenting to assist Sweetie, who was running out of patience with them.
The fight broke out, from what I can tell, about no issue; I say that because no matter what I asked about why either The Boy or Middle was mad I got a different answer -- a new answer cropping up every time I solved the first one. During this all, Sweetie tried to resolve things, too, while Oldest, who had arrived, did her best to keep it from being resolved by throwing in little, nonhelpful comments like "I get it; I don't know why she doesn't," which served only to fuel the fire.
The starting point -- not the cause, but where it began-- for the fight was the division of twenty dollars the kids' Grandma had given to Middle when they'd gone to visit her. Middle and The Boy had driven up on Real Thanksgiving to see their Grandma and eat spaghetti (because, why not?) and bring home what looked to me, when I found it jamming open the freezer later that night, like a bag of blood (only it was spaghetti sauce). They'd agreed/been ordered to split the gas by each paying $7 of the $14 cost of the trip.
As of Saturday morning, The Boy had not given Middle his $7 yet, but Middle had been given $20 by Grandma to cover the cost of gas. So Middle asked Sweetie to break a $20 for her and explained how it all came about and also apparently said that The Boy had not yet given her the $7. (I'm a little unclear on the details of the fight's inception, because I was upstairs collecting potatoes.)
Sweetie had then allowed Middle to keep $17 of the $20, and given $3 to The Boy, doing the math quickly and coming up with the correct result -- The Boy was entitled, she said, to 1/2 the $20, less the $7 he should contribute for gas.
That caused Middle to begin complaining, loudly, about things in this order: (1) The Boy never had to pay for anything (2) as usual, she was paying for everything, (3) The Boy is spoiled, and (4) How come The Boy can yell at Mom all he wants while every time SHE yells at Mom she's in trouble.
That last one was a newcomer brought about when I got into the action and told her not to yell at her Mom.
While Middle was having her Complain-A-Thon, Oldest was throwing in little comments here and there and The Boy was getting mad, too. I'm not sure what The Boy was getting mad about; I think he was mad about not really having anything to get mad about. His complaints were, in order (1) Why is everybody mad at him, and (2) What did he do and (3) He gets in trouble more than Middle, so shut up.
Even though the problem really wasn't the division of the $20, we thought it was because Middle kept alternating between "I'm getting ripped off" and "Why can't I yell at Mom?" so I set up my first ever Thanksgiving Pageant, which we can call "The Gift of the Grandma." It starred The Boy as The Boy, Middle as Middle, Oldest as Grandma-With-$20, and Sweetie as "Gas Station Attendant Who Middle Pays $14 for Gas." This pageant told the Magical Thanksgiving Story of "Why The Boy Should Not Have to Pay $7 and Should Get $3 from the $20 Grandma Gave."
As they acted it out, we were supposed to show Middle how it worked that The Boy would get $3 and not pay her, but we ran into snags because Oldest wasn't sure where she should come in, the Babies! wanted to throw things at the Pageant, and Sweetie didn't have the proper cash to actually make change, resulting in us having to pretend that $7 was, at times, $10, $7, $20, and, for all I know, the Christmas Star. But in the end, the Pageant was performed, chairs were uprighted, turkeys were cooked to a point where they were safe to eat, and Middle learned, as we all did, a valuable lesson, which she summed up at this:
I still don't see why The Boy can yell at Mom anytime he wants and I get in trouble just for yelling at her once.
I'll get to the post in a second, but first an ad:
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AND NOW FOR THE MAIN EVENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yesterday, Tina, who blogs at Life Is Good and who is responsible for me being able to make this:
... which was dinner Saturday night, consisting of grilled cheese sandwiches (and SpaghettiOs for me, with tomato soup for Sweetie), but not just any grilled cheese -- they were made the Tina's Life Is Good way, with fancy bread and kind of fancy cheese (because the cheese Tina suggested we use cost $ELEVEN DOLLARS ARE YOU KIDDING ME?)...
...ayway, I used Port Wine cheese spread and provolone, with sourdough bread. Sweetie had "American" cheese because she is a patriot.
THAT WHOLE INTRO IS ME BEING NICE because now Tina and I are officially in a feud, and Tina being a nice person, and it being early, it's a nice feud but still, it's a feud and I have to say this in the nicest most respectfulest sincerest, most glitteriest way possible:
ALMOST EVERYBODY IN AMERICA IS A HYPOCRITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (And so you should all shut up.)
See? I totally could have used the MEAN glitter and more exclamation points.
I also could have said "So you should all be quiet,"which would've been more polite but I felt I had to be forceful.
I am talking about, and asking you to shut up about, the ongoing constant rant about how Thanksgiving is being ruined by the fact that retailers open up on the holiday, and how that takes away from family time and how as a result America is going to slide off the edge of the ocean or Miley Cyrus is going to twerk on our turkey
(TWERKEY! (TM) coming soon from MTV and CostCo!)
or something like that.
Honestly, it's all so overblown and all so misplaced and all so completely... Wrong.
That I get upset.
Let me list what I think are the most common arguments about how horrible it is for a Wal-Mart -- it's Wal-Mart that gets to everyone, right? Because they're evil, right? If they wouldn't open up we wouldn't care half as much, right? -- to be open on Thanksgiving:
1. It interferes with family time.
2. It emphasizes commercialism instead of holidays.
3. Those poor people who have to work on Thanksgiving! *sob*.
I'm getting a little overworked. Time for a cute picture break.
I call him "Pumpkiny Pete!"
Anyway, let's go with argument number one:
1. Opening stores on Thanksgiving totally inteferes with family time which means that retailers are evil! (Extra exclamation point for those who really mean it: ! ):
Let me start with: If you go to a store on Thanksgiving, you are interfering with family time, not the retailer. You can't possibly be arguing that the mere fact of a retailer being open forces you to go there, right?
One woman, whose letter I read online because news organizations know everyone but me eats this stuff up like a fourth slice of pumpkin pie (a recent HuffPo article played up a survey that said 70% of Americans dislike stores opening on Thanksgiving, while ignoring another poll that said only 49% dislike it, calling the results "similar." Which THEY ARE NOT), complained that stores were open and she was going to have to go because there were, like, totally good deals and she wanted to get stuff for her kids.
That is like when your brother used to grab your arm, swing it into your face, and say "Why are you hitting yourself?"
Okay, it's nothing like that but I'm still a little mad about that. Stupid Bill. Anyway, the point is, why is it the retailers' fault that you want to go out and save money on presents? Yes, yes, money is tight. Believe me, I get that as much as anyone. I get most of my money for the entire year on January 1 -- so Xmas is annually a time of trying to decide how much we can stretch out the tiny amount of money remaining in our budget because we went a little overboard on such luxuries as "fixing our exploded garage door" or "paying for Mr Bunches' teeth to be pulled out after he fell off the monkey bars."
But if I make the choice to get up off the couch, awkwardly button my pants over my distended belly
and go out to make sure that Mr Bunches gets that Imaginext DC Superfriends Fortress Of Solitude Now Featuring Battle Armor Superman (I'm just guessing that exists and also why does Superman need battle armor? Then again, why wouldn't he wear it? I'm not taking a stand either way), that's my fault.
Not Imaginext's, not the retailers, not even Mr Bunches' fault. Well, a little him, but he's cute, so okay.
The fact that something is available doesn't mean you have to go. Strip clubs are open on Thanksgiving. Have you found yourself drawn to them like Richard Dreyfus to that mountain?
I didn't think so. Also, the Homer clip was funnier than a Close Encounters outtake.
Also, consider this: What is family time?
A few years back, Sweetie and I decided to go out to a midnight sale at Wal-Mart. They had these play tents shaped like dragons (more like frogs, as it turns out, but I don't hold a grudge.*)(*I totally do) that were marked down to some amount of money that essentially meant the price was inconsequential, and that's me saying that: I hesitate to pay $0.99 for a song. This was obviously quite a deal. So we had The Boy stay late after Thanksgiving dinner ("Hey, The Boy: do you want unfettered access to a houseful of snacks and leftover turkey while also having free reign to watch any channel you want on cable?" That offer sold itself) and Sweetie and I ventured out at about 11:30 to the local store, and there we found roughly every single person in the Western Hemisphere waiting to get good deals. We got inside, and it turned out we were pretty much the only people there for Frog Tents (imagine!) but everyone was very polite and everyone was in a good mood and when we ended up waiting over an hour to check out, winding our way through the store, we were stuck in between two groups, one a mother/daughter team and one a husband/wife team like us, and we talked with them and they talked with each other (mostly about Zhu Zhu pets, as I recall) and everyone seemed to have a pretty good time.
That's actually a pretty good memory; Sweetie and I got a lot of time to spend together and talk, and we drove around our dark snow-covered city and saw some lights and then we went home and nestled into our beds, about 2 a.m., to sleep late the next day, secure in the knowledge that Mr F would have a Frog Dragon Tent he would use roughly once every 300 days.
The point is: That, too, is family time. I have my family over to watch football games -- boy will I get on that in a minute -- and we take the family to the zoo and to amusement parks and on cookouts and all that, so "family time" is what you make of it. When my mom was dying, "family time" was sitting in her hospital room. If you love your family, you can love them even away from the kitchen table.
Besides, is Thanksgiving the only day you can spend with your family?
If so, then perhaps you should spend it not shopping -- even if you miss out on those deals. If not, then why complain? Thanksgiving is an extra day to see your family. Spend it how you want, and let others spend (aha! It's a shopping pun!) the day how they want.
2. Yeah but you are kind of being a bit of a jerk and also how about emphasizing commercialism over holidays and how those workers have to work which is kind of the same thing? Can you tackle THAT, Mr Glitterfontpants?
Yes.
I saw the other day that the local Dollar Store -- at which I have spent an amount that greatly exceeds the National Debt, including this past weekend when we bought $15 worth of materials to make a Bubble Wrap Cactus, which was one of our craft projects during Saturday when I spent time with my family even though there wasn't a Sweet Potato in sight -- that they are open on Thanksgiving from 8-4.
I drove yesterday by a restaurant that is family owned, called the "Parkway Family Restaurant" and saw that their sign said "Open on Thanksgiving."
And in both cases I thought "I should probably go buy something at that place on Thanksgiving," which means (as we already knew) I am part of the problem, only I see it as being more part of the solution.
Anyone who complains about a business -- ANY business, but let's face it everyone's mostly mad about Wal-Mart -- being open on Thanksgiving ought to ask themselves this:
Why do you suppose they are open on Thanksgiving?
It's not because they are evil. Unless you think the "Parkway Family Restaurant" is owned by the Evil Galactic Overlord.
"Would you like some appetizers before I throw you into the fire pit?"
No, retailers open up because they need to.
"Black Friday," remember, got its name because that is the day that retailers traditionally made enough money to show a profit for the year. Again, I can relate: I will not know how much money I will be paid this year until December 31. So every day I look at the books and try to figure out if my family will need to buy dinner from the Dollar Store next year.
Thanksgiving is the kickoff to the holiday season, and that is so strong an incentive for people to buy that simply moving Thanksgiving up a week can help end a recession. I know that sounds crazy but it's been done, and worked, in the past.
Now, let's say you are Retailer A. Let's say you REALLY REALLY love Thanksgiving and don't want to get up and go to work. But there's also Retailer B in town and she gets a lot of customers on Black Friday -- and you could make more money, provide better for your family and give health care to your workers, etc., if you just got some of those customers.
So you decide one year to open up at 6 a.m. on Black Friday, and all B's customers come to you. Next year, B opens at 5.
See where this is heading?
You and B can't even agree not to open early, first because that would be against antitrust regulations, but second because opening at the same time simply puts you back to where neither of you is doing great.
Retailers who open on Thanksgiving are like movie theaters (who also open on Thanksgiving and this year Sweetie is taking Mr Bunches to a movie to celebrate Thanksgiving/movies while Mr F and I stay home and play-wrestle/cook): they are simply trying to make money, which is how companies stay in business. Here is an actual thing I say to my actual clients/customers who want a discount or free consultation or otherwise don't want to pay:
"I would very much like to help you out. I got into this business because I like helping people. But I have five kids and a wife, and 37 employees each of whom has kids and wives and husbands, and they are counting on me to get paid, or I can't give them money at the end of the week."
THAT is why people open on Thanksgiving: not because they are greedy, but because if they don't make money they can't pay their employees and they will go out of business.
Ask a Wal-Mart employee this question: "Do you want to work on Thanksgiving?" and they will say "No."
Ask them this question: "Do you want to work on Thanksgiving if doing so means that you will still have a job, and hence a paycheck, for the coming year, the alternative being unemployment?" and I bet the answer will be different.
If a retailer near you is open for business on Thanksgiving, that's likely because they need to be to earn money to pay their own bills. Rather than hating them, you should do what I do: Consider patronizing them. If not on Thanksgiving, maybe some other day. It'd be nice, wouldn't it, if they didn't have to work on Thanksgiving to make a living?
Not working on Thanksgiving is a luxury; it will be a great day when we realize we are rich enough as a country to allow almost everyone to do that. But we haven't reached that point, yet, and so punishing people for having to work (and having to make their employees work) is wrongheaded and counterproductive.
3. For added measure, don't you now agree that you're being kind of hypocritical in who you complain about? No? Let me explain how you are hypocritical, dear reader(s?):
There are no laws prohibiting companies from being open on Thanksgiving -- and there shouldn't be, because this is America -- and to the extent that any laws are being passed (such as the one where a congressman wants to mandate triple-time for holiday pay) they target one sector: Big Retail.
Nobody is complaining, so far as I can tell, that some businesses are open and others are not. For example, nobody is complaining that news organizations will make their people work on Thanksgiving, or that NASA keeps its staffers on that day, or that many government workers and soldiers still have to report for duty.
Surprisingly, in a recent poll, 100% of men said "This business NEEDS to open on Thanksgiving."
Have you thought of those people? Probably not. And the usual answer I get when I bring that kind of thing up is "Well, those people chose their occupations and/or are highly paid." About which I say: BUNK, and also BUNK, TOO.
While I'm sure that many people who work in retail had few other options open to them -- at least entry-level, retail is the among the last of the unskilled, no degree required jobs -- many other people did not "choose" their occupations any more than retail employees did.
Soldiers, for example. About 1/2 of all officers in the military do not hold advanced degrees, and while 6% of enlisted soldiers had degrees about high school level. Recruits overwhelmingly came from middle class and lower middle class families. (Source.)
Let's see how that compares to demographics of retail employees, who make up only about 10% of the workforce anyway (so only about 1 in 10 people will have to work on Thanksgiving, making it not worthy of this national outrage.)
First off, 1 in 4 retail workers is between 16 and 24. My teenagers were never too crazy about spending time with the family, and I don't think many protesters are complaining that a surly teen can't sit at the table sulking because we made them turn off "Call of Duty V: Pilgrim Ops" and come to the table to talk to MeeMaw.
"Mashed potatoes are so bourgeoisie, Pop Pop."
Of the non-teen workers, 50% have education beyond high school; 38% had at least a high school diploma, so only 12% had no degree or diploma. Which means that retail workers compare, demographically, to soldiers quite well.
The median pay for retail workers was $20,000-$25,000 depending on the job. That' s a misleading statistic, of course, as all medians are. It means that 1/2 of all retail workers make less than $20,000 -- but 1/3 to 1/2 of retail workers are part-time (some involuntarily so), which skews the statistics. (Retail statistics courtesy of this report.)
What separates soldiers and retailers are two things. Well, three, if you count the whole "getting shot at by people who hate you/being blown up by IEDs" which I think counts a lot, but soldiers also get moved around more and spend time away from families -- far more than retailers, far more than just Thanksgiving -- and get slightly more pay and many more benefits. Your average soldier earns only $29,000 per year, but gets another $22,000 in benefits such as housing and food allowances.
If soldiers chose their occupation, then so did retailers: they have about the same level of education and come from similar demographic backgrounds; but people who go into retail (excluding those who tried the military and were rejected) made the decision for their own reasons -- such as the aforementioned shooting/IEDs.
So why not complain that soldiers don't get to come home on Thanksgiving? Even if we don't call home active duty troops and support staff from war zones, why do supply sergeants in Fort Wherever have to go in to work that day?
Consider then other workers who have to go in. Did you know there are Broadway shows being performed on Thanksgiving? Are you protesting those? There are, and you are not. And before you say "Well, those actors opted for their careers they want to perform," let's remember that when you have a newscast showing the Macy's Parade and the Broadway show doing the umpteenth performance of Cats, you also have low-paid technicians and staffers working those shows.
Or, to put it another way: Someone has to sell popcorn at intermissions at those Broadway shows, and that person is not getting $40,000,000 per year.
Where are the congresspeople demanding triple time for extras in A Chorus Line?
Congress has determined this issue needs MUCH MORE STUDY.
Let's really consider how bad Americans hurt other Americans who work on Thanksgiving while also being hypocritical: FOOTBALL!
Every year, the NFL now puts on three games on Thanksgiving, games people await so eagerly they were already talking about them, in our office, last week.
For every high-priced player on the field (players who have to work Thanksgiving) there are also linesmen, referees, announcers, camera guys, newspaper reporters, photographers, cheerleaders (who often are unpaid), concession stand workers, ushers, parking lot attendants, traffic cops, and a hundred other people who have to man the various infrastructures that beam that game into your living room where you sit with your family watching a production put on by people who could not sit with their families.
The average broadcast technician earns $43,000 per year. Camera operators on average get $37,000 per year. Production assistants, $28,000. The highest level of reporter -- the guys who get to go to the big games -- gets $51,000 per year. (Source for all that.)
Hundreds of different workers will man the staff at Cowboys Stadium on Thanksgiving Day. (Source.) In order to let you watch Tony Romo choke in a big game, those workers will make $18,000 a year if they tear your ticket, $19,000 a year if they sell you a commemorative t-shirt, $50,000 a year to hear you bitch about how expensive hot dogs are at the game and sell you one anyway, but 1/2 that -- $29,000 a year-- if they are the emergency medical technician there to save your life if you choke on the hot dog. The people who wipe up all the stadium sauce, beer, and barf after the game get $22,000 a year to spend Thanksgiving evening picking up after the fans of America's Team.
AND THEY DO THAT BECAUSE YOU WATCH THE GAME.
If you didn't watch, they wouldn't play the game and those poor custodians wouldn't be there until late at night cleaning up. If they work the night game on the NFL Network, the custodians might well have to leave their family dinner at 3 or 4 and then work until 3 a.m. picking up the trash left behind by the live audience for the game you wanted to watch.
So maybe, instead of bemoaning the fact that Wal-Mart is open at four and how it cuts into your family time, you take a moment to understand not just how the economy works, but your part in the grander scheme of things.
Those people who work on Thanksgiving help earn wages which help buy other goods and services which help keep other people employed. It's the economy, stupid. And while you may object to low-wage employers like Wal-Mart "profiteering" (quotes intentional, and heavily sarcastic) off Thanksgiving, you no doubt have MANY items that you bought from low-wage purveyors of goods. Own any Apple stuff? Welcome to the dark side..
LOTS of people have to work on Thanksgiving. Some of them seem more necessary than others, but almost every single person who is forced to work on Thanksgiving is being forced to do that in order to help keep the company they work for running, and hence paying that person to work there and hence making it possible that the person who has to work can put food on their table, whenever they actually eat their Thanksgiving dinner.
It's not a shame, at all, that people work on Thanksgiving. The real shame is that the people who work on Thanksgiving -- be they Wal-Mart greeters, ushers on Broadway, NASA workers* (*astronauts earn $60,000-$71,000 per year), stadium custodians, or the staff at the Parkway Family Restaurant-- those people don't earn very much money. But that's for a different day and a different argument; you won't fix low wages by writing paeans to days gone by when people sat at home peacefully and ate turkey. (I, as an employer, have no employees who do not get benefits and earn more than minimum wage. They all get Thanksgiving off.)
You can make things better on Thanksgiving, but not by simply sitting around complaining. You could, for example, tell your retailers and other businesses that you will gladly patronize their store the Wednesday before if they promise to close on Thanksgiving. (And then DO IT.) You could tip the people who work at those stores that day -- nothing says you can't tip a Best Buy employee. Take a bunch of gift cards from local restaurants and give one to each employee who helps you. You could get everyone to pitch in and do something nice for those workers, in some way. You could contribute to charities that help out people who for some reason get paid almost nothing even though they live in a country that can spend $180,000,000+ in a single weekend seeing a stupid movie about a stupid teenager shooting some stupid bow and arrows.
All those things might help. Shopping on Thanksgiving might help -- especially if you shop at stores that actually treat their employees well (you could look on this list of the 100 best companies to work for to help guide you) -- because shopping on Thanksgiving helps make sure that companies which find it necessary to open that day actually earn money.
What doesn't help is simply complaining that some store you don't like is open. We all benefit, directly or indirectly, more or less, from the millions of people forced to work on Thanksgiving. Let's not demonize one tiny sector and make it worse for them.
READ TINA's original post here. Starting your Xmas shopping Friday? Why not give an ebook? WHY NOT GIVE EIGHT? For $7.92 you could send that special someone all 8 of my ebooks, available on Amazon. Ebooks like this one:
"Santa, Godzilla, and Jesus Walk Into A Bar," a/k/a The Greatest Xmas Story Ever Told (By Me). Nick, a nearly-failed UFO maker, finds a tiny brass trumpet lying in a gutter – moments before a dead body drops from the sky and he’s chased down the street and into a major adventure by Sexy Cop. Before he knows it, Nick is doing battle with Wenceslas’ Xmas Machine, helped by Angels, the Secret Army Under The Bed, and a man in a robe, as attempts at world domination mix in with Nick’s attempts to convince Sexy Cop that they are soulmates.
"if you've ever wondered what Douglas Adams might have produced if he'd been locked in a room for weeks at a time with only Twinkies and Jolt cola, you should read "Santa, Godzilla... it has that same frenetic energy that Adams has only weirder." -- Andrew Leon, speculative fiction author.
iddle learned, as we all did, a valuable lesson, which she summed up at this:
