Giving Thanks Like There's No Tomorrow

     This is a busy week for everyone, myself included, so perhaps we should just get to it. Most of us have work for at least part of the week, and there is (if you're lucky) some kind of gathering or another with friends and\or family happening as well. Or, failing that, perhaps a bottle of wine, a warm blanket, and your favorite television and movie streaming service. So really, I don't intend to keep you long. Of course, I rarely do, but then I get myself caught up in tangents (like this one) and then, before you know it, an entire introduction is written and I haven't even mentioned yet that I intend to talk about how Thanksgiving is quickly being turned from a meaningful Holiday into the biggest time of year for people to be coerced into buying a bunch of heavily discounted stuff.
     Now don't get me wrong, friends and neighbors, I like stuff, and have no shortage of it. I've got books, I've got a desk painted to look like the Gotham City skyline (go on, laugh, but your jaw would drop if you saw it, and that I promise), I've got small plastic disks that when put into the proper receptacle are capable of playing entire movies in 3D. I also have said proper receptacle, and it additionally serves as a typewriter, file cabinet, television, and digital portal to the entire rest of the world.
     Believe me, I've got the stuff.
     What I don't have is the desire to get more of it by literally stepping on and over other people like I'm in some Clockwork Orange Price is Right, even if it is way cheaper than normal.
     When I was a child, I was told by a person whom I then believed (and in many ways, still believe) to be the wisest person in my world that Thanksgiving was one of the only holidays that had a truly holy origin, because it was created solely to give thanks to a chosen deity for allowing most of a people to survive. Other holidays, which I will not identify, were just mutations of pagan festivals that had been taken over in order to further promote religious conversion.
     By the way, a lot of those pagan festivals seem like way more fun, and I bet not one person sang "Santa Baby." But that's a different issue.
     Take another quick look at what Thanksgiving was originally about, just to get us back on track and not thinking about the fun of city wide pagan feasts and orgies and how much more fun that would be than all the silly pointless stuff we get have to-
      Hang on, I said we're not thinking about that. Okay, back on track, we're all busy adults here, and so on. Thanksgiving started out as a group of people giving thanks to their deities for not allowing all of them to die over the harsh and unforgiving winter. They didn't even all get to live, and still believed in being thankful for and sharing what they had. Yes, I understand that this feeling of brotherly love did not last, especially for the American Indian, but that's what makes the day itself so important. Letting go of the all consuming desire for more, and taking just a day to be grateful for what one has.
     Even for those of us who are not of a religious bent, gratitude for the better aspects of one's existence is an excellent notion to keep in one's head.
     Another thing I don't have, aside from a segue, is the desire to see anyone forced to work on Thanksgiving under the threat of being fired, because this holiday, as I may have vaguely discussed, is about being thankful for what you have, not being threatened with the loss of it.
     Look, I know none of this (except perhaps the list of junk I own and if I'm lucky one or two of the jokes) is new to anyone. We know the deal, and I have yet to meet anyone who is happy that more retail places are going to be open on Thanksgiving.  I also know that I can't change it, no matter how much I complain or vow to not visit any of them myself. I can't do anything about it, not really.
     But We can. How crazy would that be, if We -even a good sized number of Us- decided not to allow ourselves to be pulled into the madness that is turning this holiday of gratitude into a celebration of insatiability? We could get back some of our dignity as consumers, and perhaps even decide not to die over televisions and video game consoles.
     Remember that? People die at this thing. They die. At a sale. Who wants to die like that? Wouldn't you rather die in... you know what? I'm having a hard time picking a place, because every place seems like a better place to die in than a Wal-Mart.
     I know it's too late for Christmas, and Independence day has largely been taken over by car and hot dog manufacturers, and St. Valentines Day has been a joke since time out of mind, but I think We can still reclaim Thanksgiving. It would be so easy, too! Each one of Us would only have to do -literally- the least we could do, which is nothing. Not even leave the house. Stay home. Do nothing, Spend no money. We could totally do nothing, if we really tried, I bet. Not that I really expect it (someone's gotta get me that Roomba, after all.)
     I sure would be grateful though.
-John