My Mom always told me while growing up in our rural home in Hancock that too many people tried to buy their way to happiness. The more one had, many thought, the happier they were. But as she pointed out time and again those who had more than most were often the unhappiest folks in the area.
So it is that once again in the great chase for material things many people will decide to trek into the stores on Thanksgiving Day to trample over other people, fight to get into check-out lines ahead of others, and sneer at drivers who have gotten the treasured parking space.
If they were not hunting for a parking space it might have been because they were actually camping out with tents and chairs and sleeping bags for ‘the big deal’. Is that not that a sad statement about what has happened in the country? What a grand way to spend a holiday that is aimed at giving thanks!
Maybe it was due to how I was raised and also from the experiences of my adulthood that I sincerely hope my fellow Americans will do two things this season.
First I hope that we applaud not only in spirit but then also with our verbal thanks to those retailers and merchants who remain closed on Thanksgiving. There will be time for Christmas shopping after we give a day of thanks. Let us then shop at those places who observe our national holiday.
Second it is my desire that Americans spend their holiday with family and friends instead of shopping and amassing things. Let us stop trading in home time for mall time and again build up the tradition of why Thanksgiving was established in the first place.
CAFFEINATED POLITICS 
I agree. We don’t shop Holidays, Blk Friday, and seldom on Sundays. Retail workers need time off from the madness.
You know who needs time off from the madness EMTs, nurses,doctors,firemen,policemen, people who put up with real madness 24/7. Maybe we can create safe places for retail workers to hide in like the shiny college student of today.
pk, I think you go out of your way to be out of the ball field. No one could actually believe what you write. The professions you name are not corporate interests who decided just a number of years ago that making money on a holiday was good for their bottom line. When we were kids all the professions you listed worked on every holiday. But the vast bulk of the nation did not work and also did not have unlimited stores to head to rather than be with family and friends and give thanks. This is something that was created to make money at the expense of a national holiday. I recall and even noted in my book that my parents would always tell me as parents are known to do to make sure my gas tank was full for the round trip as there were not even gas stations opened that day along the highway. We both know that was how things were and the way it was meant to be so the national day of thanksgiving could be honored.