Thanksgiving

I really feel as though Thanksgiving totally got forgotten.  I totally feel for it, as my family regularly forgets to tell me important things.  Like hey, by the way, your mother has moved out of your childhood home into a condo in another city and no one mentioned it to you...that kind of forgotten.  But hey, don't worry Thanksgiving, that kind of neglect really only adds months onto your future therapy needs!  In relation to the decades you will require, really, just a drop in the hat!

I guess I am as guilty as the next person of forgetting about Thanksgiving in the rush to get Black Friday deals.  My sister even contemplated camping out in the Best Buy parking lot and deep frying the turkey out there.  Then we realized that we might run of out alcohol that way and there was no way in hell my family was going to try to tolerate each other without it (even with the added sleepy effects of the turkey...) so that idea got nixed pretty quickly.  I must say though, that it really seemed as though Christmas overshadows Thanksgiving in a big way this year.

I guess if you compare the holidays, it is pretty much a no brainer.  What to emphasize; the birth of Christ or the beginnings of the systematic oppression and cruelty towards an entire race of people as well as the beginnings of pillaging the land for its natural resources to the extent that we change the climate of an entire fucking planet?  I would buy that if a.) Christians weren't responsible mainly for the latter, and b.) Christmas is really not about the birth of Jesus anymore anyways.

I do go shopping on Black Friday.  This year we skipped Walmart in favor of the $15 jeans at Old Navy.  I have lost a lot of weight (thank you, Dukan diet!) and was down 3 jeans sizes, so that was a no brainer.  Then we went to the mall and for some reason stood in line forever to buy shit at Express.  Only reason why I went for this was because I have my nephew's name for Christmas and he wanted a fucking $60 hoodie that was on sale for $38.  His damn fleece pullover cost more than two pairs of my jeans.  Whatevs, it was what he wanted.  Then we went to Perkins and had really crappy food with even crappier service and waited till 5 AM for Kmart to open to complete my shopping.

I am providing these details because I want to clearly emphasize the next point:  I was tired the rest of that day.  No duh, right?  So I did not go grocery shopping until later that night.  And when I went, I kinda got the feeling I was witnessing the aftermath of...something.  Like an overly dramatic teenager just flipped out on her parents because they tried to show her how to fold a shirt and OMG I am not a baby and you just need to LET GO  and you are RUINING MY LIFE BY BREATHING THE SAME AIR AS ME!!!! and now the parents are left reeling and staggering around with a massive headache, strong desire to drink, and a vague sense of impending doom.  That kind of aftermath.

This is what unfettered materialism does to people.  Capitalism is not bad.  I am all as "Yay Capitalism!" as the next person...but really, America, the workers of retail establishments are people too.  And they don't need to have that look the day after Thanksgiving.  It should be the OMFG I ate too much turkey and now my pants don't fit look.

And for the record, I did today support a small business on Small Business Saturday :) Yay Capitalism!