Really? American Retailers At “War With The American Family?”

Townhall.com ^ | October 20, 2013 | Austin Hill

[Kaslin]

Did you hear the big news? American retailers are carrying out a “war on the American family.”

Seriously. That’ s how some media hosts and pundits are characterizing the fact that many American retailers are planning to keep stores open on Thanksgiving Day.

And then there’s social media that all abuzz about the shocking, horrific developments. “Because I believe in family, I pledge to NOT shop on Thanksgiving” the much-shared Facebook “avatar” reads. “If I’m shopping, someone else is working and not spending time with their family. Everyone deserves a holiday.”

Well, how about this: if I’m shopping in a store – on Thanksgiving Day or any other day – then, yes, somebody else is working. And given that roughly one-third of the entire population of the United States is not working at all right now; and that the country’s labor force participation rate is at a thirty year low; and that the consumption of the federal Foodstamps and Medicaid welfare programs is at an all-time high – I’m thinking that if somebody is ambitious enough to work, even on Thanksgiving Day, then that’s a good thing.

Beyond that, this ginned-up crisis is foolish, for several important reasons:

A) This is not new: converging Thanksgiving Day, the “holiday” season and retail shopping has a long history in the U.S., dating as far back as the 1920’s with President Herbert Hoover. Given that he and his predecessor President Franklin Delano Roosevelt both governed during a market crash and the “Great Depression,” they both saw the overall economic benefits of robust retail sales. FDR is generally credited with forging the so-called black Friday “tradition,” and retail businesses has been perfecting it ever since. And, in case it matters, Hoover was a Republican and FDR was a Democrat – so the whole holiday shopping craze, distasteful as it may be to some, is actually very “bi-partisan.”

B) Even though the fussing is happening today, Thanksgiving Day shopping started last year: I don’t recall seeing or hearing the “war on the American family” last year. But national retailers Aeropostale, Banana Republic, Big Lots, CVS, Family Dollar, The Gap, Kmart, Old Navy, Sears, Sony, Starbucks, Target, Toys'R'Us, Walgreens and Whole Foods were just a few of the businesses that began newly expanded Thanksgiving Day operational hours in November of 2012. Why is this suddenly offensive now?

C) Participating in Thanksgiving Day shopping is optional: Maybe another way to say this is “what part of ‘free’ do you not understand about the ‘free market?’” So many Americans – even many “conservative” Americans – don’t even think of what a profound blessing it is that we are not forced to purchase retail goods at a particular store or on a particular day of the week (at least not yet, anyway). Our consumer choices and freedoms contrast dramatically with the ways in which people once lived in the former Soviet Union, or as people live still today in places like North Korea and Cuba. If shopping on Thanksgiving Day is distasteful to you, then plan now to NOT do it. But seriously – is it a worthwhile expenditure of energy to protest those who might wish to shop on Thanksgiving Day, or those retailers who might wish to serve the interests of those would-be shoppers?

D) Retail is an important part of the U.S. economy, and winning in retail is already difficult enough: Because of lots of really bad public policy decisions that Americans have enabled their state and federal government agencies to make over the last many decades, for at least the last ten years or so we’ve been in this horrible situation where consumer spending is often the biggest energizer of the entire national economy. America is mostly adverse to chopping down trees for timber or drilling oil for the global market (Canada, New Zealand and Australia, by the way, have been quite happy to fill those niches while we’ve sat on the sidelines), and we don’t manufacture nearly as much as we could, so consumer spending has taken a dangerously prominent spot in the overall economic picture and retail success is more important than ever.

Add to this the fact that both conservative and liberal Americans seem to love retail boycotts. Liberal Americans boycott Starbucks because the company won’t prohibit customers from legally carrying private firearms in to their stores, while conservative Americans boycott Starbucks because the company’s CEO supports homosexual marriage. Liberals boycotted Whole Foods earlier this year because their CEO stated the obvious – that Obamacare is destroying the employment market – and conservatives have boycotted Costco because the company extends employment benefits to same-sex partners of their employees. The fact that Starbucks, Costco and Whole Foods are all egalitarian companies with some of the most generous compensation packages among all service industry employers doesn’t seem to matter. Many Americans seem to have a high need for being outraged and retailers are frequent targets of their emoting. Do we really need to create more of this on a day that is so important to our families?

E) There are far more egregious things about which to be outraged: You’re looking for something to rage about? How about a President who promised cheaper, more plentiful healthcare for all, yet whose signature “reform” law is driving healthcare costs upward and doctors and nurses out of their jobs? How about a Congress that exempts themselves from the Obamacare disasters, but won’t give the rest of the American population a reprieve? Do these injustices even belong in the same sentence with “shopping on Thanksgiving Day?”

Is Thanksgiving Day shopping really a problem in the grander scheme of things? Really?

[Springfield Reformer]

Color me one of those “wrong-headed” conservatives. While I gladly acknowledge the free exercise of commerce, its good for culture to have natural points of harmony between faith and commerce, where we as a people take some time, in unison, as families, to thank God for His many blessings. It’s a good and healthy practice, and I for one am sad to have lived to see its demise in progress. It is something lost.

[momto6]

I work in a very small town c-store, everyone in town knows that if there is something they need after closing they can call me or come to my door and I will go the block to the store and open up for them. In three years it has happened twice, amazing how respectful people are sometimes.

We are closed on Christmas and Easter. We used to be closed on Thanksgiving but I started volunteering to work till 2pm so that the town could have black friday papers and some place to get gas and coffee before heading to their families houses.

I LOVE working Thanksgiving, LOVE it, everyone is in a great mood, and they are thankful that they can pick up the tub of cool whip that they forgot, the gas they didn’t think they would need etc. I get off at 2:30 or so and head to grandmas house where my family is waiting for me. We eat and have a great time. I can’t wait till Thanksgiving this year, I just hope that I will be recovered enough from my fusion surgery to be able to work it this year.

[C. Edmund Wright]

You are wrongheaded, and I’ll tell you why - in all of your self righteous splendor:

I totally agree it is good for natural points of harmony between faith and commerce....but only a moron would think it’s good to agree with the anti commerce communists atheists in order to achieve it. When you lie down with dogs......you get more than fleas....you get their stenchy poop all over yourself....go take a shower and give liberty a chance.

[Springfield Reformer]

In what way have I joined with the anti-commerce communists? I think you misread my post completely. Completely. Try again and get back to me. Or else explain how you’ve read my mind at such a great distance, because I have absolutely no idea how you got what you got from what I said.

[sbMKE]

Columbus day is a sacred government and banking holiday. Ironic that the lefties love the time off to honor a white man that they despise.

[greene66]

You’re not alone. I find it particularly grotesque, seeing the time-honored holidays and their historic place in our culture being supplanted by something like the ugly and downright-farcical insanity of “Black Fridays” and its mob of zombie consumers, rushing through doors like a pack of rats in a grain elevator.

[EBH]

I don’t know about your Dad, but my nieces and nephews thought I worked for Santa Claus... as well as a few neighbor’s kids too...wink, wink.

I think, as someone who worked the holidays, it was all a matter of attitude. And I do mean that from the very bottom of my heart.

From the bells I used to attach to my shoes to the understanding that my own actions could make or break the ‘spirit’ of the season for someone...or in some cases restore someone’s faith in the future...

Maybe I wax too nostalgic at times about those years, but when I look back on them now, I am glad I was a part of them.

A couple years ago I took a part-time job at a local garden center for the holidays. I worked the ‘front of store’ for them as a greeter, customer service, and all around person. They never had so many people actually stop and write compliments about ‘that lady at the front.’ LOL.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Here are some great, sinful Thanksgiving recipes, to make this holiday memorable. They really liven up a table.

(this is one with a gazillion calories, but amazingly good.)

Egg, Asparagus and Cheese Casserole

6 tbsp butter
3 tbsp chopped green pepper
2 tbsp grated onion
4 tbsp flour
2 cups milk
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper

Saute until tender in top of double boiler, then add flour and blend. Gradually add milk and cook until smooth and thick. Add salt and pepper.

3-15 oz drained cans of asparagus
6 sliced hard boiled eggs
American cheese slices
3/4 cup buttered crumbs

Alternate layers of asparagus, egg slices and cheese slices, and sauce in a large, square baking dish. Top with final layer of sauce and buttered crumbs.

Bake covered in 350F oven for 20 minutes.

************
(You should start this one soon, so that it will be full flavored by Thanksgiving. I grew up with these, and always thought beets tasted great.)

Pickled Beets

3 cans sliced beets, drained
4 hard boiled, peeled eggs
1 thick sliced onion
1 tbsp pickling spice
1 heaping tsp sea salt
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 bay leaf

Add ingredients to jar then pour over them, boiling a 50/50 mix of cider vinegar and water to cover plus an inch. Seal and refrigerate. Pickling time is a minimum of two weeks.

**************
Chocolate Cheese

1 lb Velveeta Cheese
1 lb Butter
4 lb Confectioners Sugar
1 cup Cocoa
2 tsp Vanilla

In large saucepan, slowly melt cheese and butter together.
Sift sugar and cocoa together. Add to melted cheese mixture, stir until completely dissolved. Mixture will be stiff. Pour into greased 9x13 pan. Allow to cool in refrigerator, frost. Store covered in fridge.

Frosting Ingredients:
8 oz. cream cheese
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. Vietnamese Cinnamon (regular cinnamon will work, but
not be as spicy)
1 tsp. Grand Marnier

************
(This also needs to be prepared starting soon.)
Rum Fruitcake

I recommend getting a good quality fruitcake in a tin, then once a day for an entire month, remove the lid and sprinkle one tablespoon (no more, or it becomes mushy) of Myer’s Dark Rum over the top before resealing. At the end of a month, it is served in thin slices as an appetizer, and has substantial muzzle velocity. Traditionally, a small plate with whole cloves sits nearby, one or two of which are chewed to conceal the rum smell.

**********
(Magnificent on hot bread with butter.)
Ginger Apple Honey

1 cup finely chopped fresh ginger root
5-6 large apples (tart-sweet crisp ones such as Prima or Jonagold)
2 cups water
6 cups sugar
2 tsp powdered ginger
chopped crystallized ginger

Peel ginger root and chop fine. Quarter apples, remove peel and core and cut in slices. In pressure cooker combine ginger root and apple. Stir in water.

Pressure cook for 10 minutes. Break up tender apple slices with a potato masher. Add sugar and stir well until sugar is dissolved. Cook (uncovered) on high for at least another 20-30 minutes or until jam stage is reached at 220F to 222F, with a candy thermometer. Add powdered ginger and crystallized ginger and stir. Let cool completely. Ladle into small containers, seal and freeze until needed.

[C. Edmund Wright]

That’s easy.

First, the ginned up outrage that is the point of the articl is a creation of the anti capitalism left in the first place. Ginned up outrage is key component of the left’s battle strategy, and you fell for it.

Second, to blame businesses, who are merely reacting to the culture, not creating the culture, is absurd and again, something that is always done by the left. It is always America’s fault. It is alway the fault of the profit motive, etc.....

Third, the whole underlying premise is that productivity and profit are anti-family is just more communist witchcraft thinking. If a guy needs to work Thanksgiving to help support his family, then who the hell are you to say that shopping on Thanksgiving is anti family. If a small business needs those sales to stay in business, who the hell are you to criticize?

FTR, I have never shopped on Thanksgiving, the day after Thanksgiving, or the day after Christmas in my entire life - and I don’t intend to ever do so. I hate that it’s come to this, but to join this obviously leftist movement in some sort of pharisaical self righteous pro family flapdoodle is to be a tool of the left.

And clearly, you don’t realize it......(yet)

[C. Edmund Wright]

I find it particularly grotesque, seeing the time-honored holidays and their historic place in our culture being supplanted by something like the ugly and downright-farcical insanity of “Black Fridays” and its mob of zombie consumers, rushing through doors like a pack of rats in a grain elevator.

I do too, but what's even more grotesque is you joining a leftist rant about it, blaming the wrong people.

[Springfield Reformer]

Fail. I wasn’t even responding to the article or accepting any of its premises. I was being nostalgic. That’s it. Sheesh. Epic fail. Try again.

[SaraJohnson]

You LIEbertarians are bimbos.

[Pining_4_TX]

Retailers may very well have killed the golden goose anyway. By taking Christmas out of Christmas (happy holidays and all that BS), they have also removed the reason people went shopping at a certain season. Why shop for Christmas presents to be given on Christmas day if nobody cares it’s Christmas any more?

Many people are now waiting for the after-Christmas sales to buy gifts, even as they have forgotten the reason there was a Christmas shopping season in the first place.

I don’t see this as a bad thing. Christians should reclaim Christmas and celebrate the birth of Christ without all the secular trappings. For that matter, there shouldn’t be just one day to give thanks to God. The secularists have already turned Thanksgiving Day into National Guilt Day. Phooey on them.

[rwa265]

There are men that watch the football games.

---

There was one Thanksgiving back when I was in high school when we were watching a football game. As the meal was being placed on the table, the first half was coming to an end and we (Dad) decided we would start the meal at halftime. As the waning minutes of the first half dragged on, my sister said: “It wouldn’t take so long if it wasn’t for those darned instant replays.

[Mad Dawgg]

"Wealth needs to be created before it is spent."

Apparently Congress missed "THAT" particular memo...

[Mad Dawgg]

Its their stores they can set whatever hours they want. However it doesn’t mean I must shop there on a Holiday or any day for that matter.

[Kit cat]

I work for another VERY HIGH END retailer they have also decided to open at 8:00 on Thanksgiving this is not a really big deal, however if they
decide to open at anytime on Christmas that is where I draw the line!
Our last season was VERY slow not looking for it to be much better this
year. More and more folks are shopping on line not dealing with the mall
madness!!!

[Mad Dawgg]

"More and more folks are shopping on line not dealing with the mall madness!!!"

I am a internet shopper and a hardcore one at that...

I dig driving the back roads of America to see the sights but a daily commute or driving to a damn mall just annoys me to no end. I hate crowds and I hate retail stores in general.

Internet shopping is heaven for me. If our local grocery stores would offer delivery I would cease all brick and mortar commerce posthaste. On the other hand flea markets I luv. Because you find interesting stuff usually of a bygone era.

So Macy's and everyone else can open 24/7/365 or not. It still won't get me to enter their stores.

[C. Edmund Wright]

I wasn’t even responding to the article or accepting any of its premises. I was being nostalgic.

Dude, or dudette, I gotta NEWSFLASH FOR YOU: when you comment on a message board, and you comment on the subject that launched the thread, then unless you make it damned clear -- the correct assumption is that you were commenting on the article. To comment on something else means you were just wasting folks' time with a ridiculous drive by comment.

[napscoordinator]

I find this to be a boon for capitalism which is what America is. Some of you want capitalism with a dash of socialism. This is great for business in a capitalistic society is positive.