By Mandelman
What a wonderful day, Thanksgiving Day has always been. It arrives each year, right in the middle of the week, the stores are, or at least were, closed and for most people, it’s followed by three glorious days of weekend, during which the holiday season officially begins. Oh, I know some people work the day after Thanksgiving, but those that do have either planned poorly or don’t mind because they’re making more money than on other days of the year.
It’s a day dedicated to eating and laying on the couch and watching movies and fires in the fireplace, with relatives, family and friends around that you don’t see everyday, and rarely ever see together… except on Thanksgiving. It’s the day of the year on which you are most likely to find yourself attempting to put a jigsaw puzzle together, even though you haven’t worked on a jigsaw puzzle in over a decade.
And it’s the same at the house next door, and down the block or across town. On Thanksgiving Day there are few expectations of you, and you have few expectations of others… even though it’s a day on which few real demands on your time are placed, it’s also a day on which it’s assumed that you’re busy.
For whatever reason, Thanksgiving is usually a day of pretty good weather, at least to my memory anyway. In the Northeast, it’s not usually snowing quite yet, of course I’m not sure what it does in places like North Dakota, but I figure the people there are there on purpose, so they deserve whatever they get. No one since the Lewis & Clark Expedition has ended up in North Dakota by accident… or South Dakota for that matter.
Thanksgiving Day is a day of parades and football games.
The parades started during the Roaring Twenties with the Macy’s Day Parade in New York City, a tradition that continues today and has got to be one of the most effective advertising buys in history, at least as far as name recognition in concerned. I can’t think of any other advertising effort by a retailer that’s become so ingrained in Americana.
I grew up watching The Macy’s Day Parade in Manhattan every year. My father would wake me up incredibly early so we could head into the …read more
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