Leave Thursday Alone
This may not sit well with some of you who enjoy extended breaks from work or school…or those of you who rely on massive shopper spending during the holidays.
But how about we move Thanksgiving away from Thursday?
Yes, it’s become customary since the days of Lincoln for Thanksgiving to be in late November. But that’s certainly not magical; after all, earlier Thanksgiving Days were held in other months, including February. We talked a bit about the history of the day yesterday, but I could not find why Thursday was selected.
There are a few holidays that are date specific: Independence Day, Christmas. There are others that used to be tied to a certain day, but were shifted to always fall on a Monday so we could have a three-day weekend; Memorial Day comes to mind.
But here’s the problem with Thanksgiving on a Thursday…it leads to a sort-of dead day on Friday, which has now been taken up by massive consumerism. And since Thanksgiving on Thursday means for many only a three day work week…folks either take the whole week off…or because so many do, it makes it hard for the rest of us to get anything done.
And just as Thanksgiving Thursday apparently spawned Black Friday, we now have a long list of other distractions. For example, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday…which should lead to something called “Worn Out Wednesday” the following day. I think Sunday in this scheme is still reserved for worshipping God, but I wouldn’t doubt something else has tried to crowd that out.
Obviously, we don’t have to fall for those traps, but there’s a lot of pressure to do so…and a lot of time spent even trying to avoid them.
So in the spirit of productivity and reclaiming a bit of our sanity…let’s move Thanksgiving to Friday. You’d still have a three-day weekend. In my world, I’d probably move it back to February as George Washington intended, too…but one step at a time.
