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The significance of Thanksgiving day
Why do you think thanksgiving is important essay
The impact of black friday
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So many people complain about how little attention society pays to Thanksgiving. Every year for as long as can be remembered, the public has been gradually minimizing the amount of time that is spent celebrating this day of thanks and gratitude. This is simply because the whole country is more interested in the more important holiday that follows it: Black Friday. In fact, Black Friday is not only more important than Thanksgiving; it is without a doubt the most important holiday of the year. Only in America do people devote an entire day (now two days in some parts of the country) to fighting each other over department store sales less than one day after proclaiming their thankfulness for the things they already have.
For decades, stores have opened their doors in the wee hours of the morning on the fabulous Black Friday. In recent years, however, the “early-bird special” concept changed when many major chains from Target to Toys R Us opened on Thanksgiving Day itself, turning the best shopping day of the year into a two-day celebration. This is quite disturbing to some because man...
Federated, and department stores in general, encompass a huge portion of not only American history but also the American economy. Fred Lazarus, former president of the present day Lazarus-Macy’s, was even responsible for the changing of the Thanksgiving holiday to the fourth Thursday in November. Lazarus suggested this to President Roosevelt in 1939 in order to give consumers more shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas thereby improving economic efficiency. Federated also operates the largest store in America, the Macy’s flagship in Manhattan, and sponsors the annual Thanksgiving Day parade. Without retail stores like Federated, America would not only lose a substantial amount of history, but the backbone of our economy.
Over the years, the American department store has developed and evolved as not only a commercial business but also a cultural institution. While it has weathered many storms and changes since its inception and throughout history, its most predominant enemy has been a change in the lifestyle of the American people (Whitaker, 2013). As the customer’s needs and wants have shifted, department stores have struggled to keep up with demands. It has been argued that the decline of the department store has been ongoing for the last 50 years (Whitaker, 2013). This dissertation aims to understand how the department store has historically played a role in consumer culture and spending, and additionally, how this has evolved and changed in today’s retail market. Although department stores may not be able to take all the credit for inventing modern shopping, they certainly made its conventions and conveniences commonplace. They set a new standard for the way the consumer should expect to be treated, the type of services that should be provided, and the convenience that should attend the process of acquiring the necessities and niceties of life all in one place. They made shopping into a leisure pastime. This environment meant shopping was a means of freedom to look around, pick up objects with no obligations to buy. As one historian remarked, department stores: “encouraged a perception of the building as a public place, where consumption itself was almost incidental to the delights of a sheltered promenade in a densely crowded, middle-class urban space” (Whitaker, 2006). Although this perception and view of the department store has changed over the years, this paper aims to follow the trail of how and why that happened.
Thanksgiving Compare and Contrast Food, Family, and Fun!! Thanksgiving is a national holiday in the United States, always celebrated on a Thursday in November. There are many different ways people celebrate Thanksgiving. You give thanks and celebrate what you are most thankful for. Thanksgiving is a national holiday that has many different traditions, activities, and foods in different families.
Chain stores, such as K-Mart and Wal-Mart swing their doors wide for all deal seekers at around 6 a.m. Individuals will wake up earlier than necessary, drive to these stores, and camp out prior to the stores opening, if only just to ensure they get the best spot in line. Also near this time, various online deals begin. This means before many people wake up on Thanksgiving morning, sales have already started both in store and online. By this standard, the day’s workers have to get to the store hours before it opens to prepare the store for the surplus of people and the chaos that will soon enfold. People should be getting rest or preparing food for their lunches or dinners, but instead they are shopping or working. Retailers place priority on shopping from the moment people wake up until they go to sleep. There is never an emphasis on family throughout the entire day in these chain stores. The madness occurs throughout the entirety of both days, causing lack of family time in both days of the holiday for patrons and
Imagine having to work on thanksgiving. Not only do those people miss out on Black Friday, but also miss out on time with your family. They also get to go to work more than likely sleep deprived, deal with unpleasant customers, and constant lines. Curtis West worked as a Macy’s employee. In his 24 years of work for them he had to work a total of 19 Black Fridays. He said it wasn’t bad when Black Friday started off, because it usually meant going in at 5 am on Friday. Now for sto...
American culture is made up of a number of different influences one of them being holidays. On of those esteemed holidays is Thanksgiving, which was made a national holiday in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln (History.com Staff). It was made a holiday at the time in order to bring the nation together during a time of pain and suffering. In this day and age, it is meant for families to come together and give thanks for what they have over a large meal, which is surrounded by football games, family recipes, and shopping. Thanksgiving, a ritual Americans have done for generations is a classic example of American civil religion. Because it brings together what it means to be an American, but at the same time ignores the history of some American
When the great holiday of Thanksgiving comes to mind, most people think of becoming total gluttons and gorging themselves with a seemingly unending amount of food. Others might think of the time spent with family and friends. The whole basis of the holiday is family togetherness, fellowship, and thankfulness for blessings received during the previous year.
It is seen in everything from the hoarding of material objects to the destruction of friendships, both of which are popular themes when regarding the topic of Black Friday shopping. Black Friday has become Black Thursday, a trend which has only shown up within the last decade. The great American holiday that is Thanksgiving is celebrated because of our gratefulness toward all that we have, a holiday that is meant to be spent gathered around a table of our loved ones. However, the retail holiday that consumes the day afterward has begun to overflow into our gatherings, and it is due to the greed of the American people. Were it not for the market’s demand for earlier sales, stores would not open their sales on Thursday nights. Everyone would simply wait until early the next morning to start off on their shopping extravaganzas, and the sales themselves would likely be far less violent as
The primary purpose of Thanksgiving Day is to unite together, and give thanks to God for the bounties and blessings that He gave us during the previous year. I made sure to arrive on the time I was expected to, as I knew Americans shows respect for being on time. There were five members in the family, a husband and wife, and their three children. The house was made clean, decorated with hangings and other beautiful accessories like holiday candles, and images of turkeys, and autumn fruits and vegetables, placed on several tables and the walls around the house. Another family, a couple and their two kids, were also invited as guests. Everyone was dressed in their best clothes, and was in a joyful, cheerful mood to enjoy the event. We were gathered around the table, everyone said grace and their respective thanks to God before starting lunch. It felt warm and comforting, sitting together with love, appreciation and concern for each other. The conversation flowed around the table, and nobody was left out. Even the pet of the house, a large hairy dog sat few feet away, enjoying his meal and being a part of th...
You are at the checkout counter of the grocery store, the cashier is scanning all your items and the total is going up and up, all while you are thinking to yourself, “how did I end up spending this much?” My article, “Supermarket Psychology : Modern grocery shoppers are the targets of a sophisticated system designed to make them stay longer and spend more” from “The Times”, discusses how supermarkets are designed to make us spend more money. Shocker! This article touches on the points of how every single aspect of the supermarket is planned to keep us shoppers there longer to rack up our grocery bill.
...f greed, we as a nation need to seriously rethink why we celebrate the holiday, and make amends to our practices in order to embody that meaning.
Holidays have always been known to affect our consumer culture for many years, but how it all began eludes many people and very few studies have been completed on it. Even though some say that the subject is too broad to precisely identify how holidays, especially Christmas, directly affect our market, I have found that people’s values, expectations and rituals related to holidays can cause an excessive amount of spending among our society. Most people are unaware that over the centuries holidays have become such a profitable time of year for industries that they now starting to promote gift ideas on an average of a month and a half ahead of actual holiday dates to meet consumer demands.
A big part of Thanksgiving is a Thanksgiving feast. The feast usually consists of potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, peas, gravy, stuffing, salads, buns and lots of other great food. The main part of the feast is usually the turkey. Other families might have ham, roast beef, duck or chicken. The dessert that is most likely to follow the feast is pumpkin pie. Other people may choose different desserts and food depending on their customs and beliefs for which they choose to give thanks. Let’s not forget the biggest and most important reason for this holiday – giving THANKS! People usually give thanks for everything they have. Their jobs, health, families or just being alive are just a few of the things that people give thanks for.
In fact, they have fun on the day because they love the atmosphere through Christmas songs and illuminations. Christmas is thought by many people to be the most wonderful time of the year. Winter snow, Christmas tree, decorations and Santa Claus are very important things which makes us happy and think that it is the most beautiful day of all the year. Everybody waits for the day because it has various meanings for different people. Moreover, they can see beautiful illuminations and listen to Christmas songs in cities or downtown. However, some adults who are parents need to spend money for buying many gifts for children. In the United States, parents generally purchase the gifts on a Black Friday. It is good for them to get their presents on the day because they more discounts on that day than other
Thanksgiving has been a quintessential American holiday for centuries. A day to be grateful for anything or everything. To some people Thanksgiving is a feast to thank God for prosperity, to others it’s a day spent with family, football, and food, but collectively it is a day that unifies people in gratitude. What I enjoy the most about Thanksgiving is that it’s not a holiday dedicated to a religion or to a certain way of life; it’s simply a day to be thankful, no handbook or rules to follow. It’s a day to reserve judgement and just be grateful that the fall air has pierced your lungs again. Honestly I think as the 21st century progresses we lose a bit of something when it comes to Thanksgiving. Black Friday has cast a shadow over the