The Forgotten Holiday

Thanksgiving these days has become more of a footnote than an actual holiday.  People get together and share a meal, usually…but no one really seems to care about it all that much.  The Christmas Season is in full swing by this point…and Black Friday has become a more popular day than Thanksgiving…which seems so wrong.  However, this wasn’t always the case.  Thanksgiving had very noble intentions when it was first proclaimed by Washington, and turned into a yearly national holiday by Lincoln.  However, it could not last.

Abraham Lincoln's successors as president followed his example of annually declaring the final Thursday in November to be Thanksgiving. They kept up the tradition, and stayed true to the meaning of the holiday.  But in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt broke with this tradition.  November had five Thursdays that year (instead of the more-common four), and Roosevelt declared the fourth Thursday as Thanksgiving rather than the fifth one.  While that makes sense to those of us today, who are used to the fourth Thursday of the month being Thanksgiving, it was a clear break with tradition. 

Why did FDR do this?  Well, he made clear that his plan was to establish the holiday on the next-to-last Thursday in the month instead of the last one as a way to combat the Great Depression.  With the country still in the midst of The Great Depression, Roosevelt thought an earlier Thanksgiving would give merchants a longer period to sell goods before Christmas.  Increasing profits and spending during this period, Roosevelt hoped, would help bring the country out of the Depression.  At the time, advertising goods for Christmas before Thanksgiving was considered inappropriate.  Fred Lazarus, Jr., founder of the Federated Department Stores (later Macy's), is credited with convincing Roosevelt to push Thanksgiving back a week to expand the shopping season.

Republicans decried the change, calling it an affront to the memory of Lincoln.  People began referring to November 30 as the "Republican Thanksgiving" and November 23 as the "Democratic Thanksgiving" or "Franksgiving".  Regardless of the politics, many localities had made a tradition of celebrating on the last Thursday, and many football teams had a tradition of playing their final games of the season on Thanksgiving; with their schedules set well in advance, they could not change.  Since a presidential declaration of Thanksgiving Day was not legally binding, Roosevelt's change was widely disregarded.  Twenty-three states went along with Roosevelt's recommendation, 22 did not, and some, like Texas, could not decide and took both days as government holidays.  In 1940 and 1941, years in which November had four Thursdays, Roosevelt declared the third one as Thanksgiving.  As in 1939, some states went along with the change while others retained the traditional last-Thursday date.

Thus, the degradation of Thanksgiving was started by FDR, who bent to the will of the Macy’s corporation, who wanted more time for people to focus on Christmas Shopping.  Obviously, some sort of conclusion needed to be made here to consolidate Thanksgiving across the land on one specific day.  On October 6, 1941, both houses of the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution fixing the traditional last-Thursday date for the holiday beginning in 1942.  However, in December of that year the Senate passed an amendment to the resolution that split the difference by requiring that Thanksgiving be observed annually on the fourth Thursday of November, which was sometimes the last Thursday and sometimes (less frequently) the next to last.  The amendment passed the U.S. House, and on December 26, 1941 President Roosevelt signed this bill, for the first time making the date of Thanksgiving a matter of federal law and fixing the day as the fourth Thursday of November.

In the years that followed, the states started to fall in line with the new federally mandated date for Thanksgiving, with Texas being the last to do so in 1956.  From this point on, it was clear that Thanksgiving was just a speed bump on the way to the Christmas shopping season in the eyes of many.  If our own President was more interested in prolonging the Christmas shopping season than preserving the traditions of Thanksgiving, why shouldn’t the general public?  As mentioned above, for the majority of Thanksgiving’s run, it was considered inappropriate to advertise for goods for Christmas before Thanksgiving.  With FDR using this as an excuse to move up Thanksgiving, that taboo started to lose weight.  Eventually, Christmas ads started to arrive earlier and earlier.  Christmas decorations would go up in stores in November.  In the late 70s, the term Black Friday started to be used in Philadelphia, referring to the busy shopping and traffic day that followed Thanksgiving.  The term caught on, stores caught on, and a shopping holiday was born.  Today, Black Friday has even started to creep into Thanksgiving Thursday (which has been renamed Black Thursday by some overly greedy corporations), with stores like Walmart and Toys R Us opening at 10pm on Thanksgiving, to give shoppers a jump on the GREAT DEALS they can find there.

It’s sickening.

Thanksgiving, when originally proclaimed by Washington, and proclaimed as an annual tradition by Lincoln, was supposed to be a day of giving thanks for the good things in our lives.  Whether it be the end of war, having enough to eat, or getting to be around a loving family, Thanksgiving was an important holiday…important enough to be proclaimed as a holiday by numerous presidents even before it was an annual occurrence.   

I blame FDR for this, and the media, and the big department stores and corporations that take advantage of this.  My Target has had Christmas decorations up since before Halloween.  I’ve seen Christmas themed commercials on my TV since the middle of October.  However, now that November has begun, they are everywhere.  The Christmas season is here…Thanksgiving be damned.

It’s a shame what’s become of one of the great, truly American holidays.  Just because this isn’t a consumer driven holiday, it gets completely overlooked.  Thanksgiving used to mean something in this country.  To me, and to my family, it still does.  I am Thankful every year for that.

That’s enough history, though.  Next week, we will look at some of the fun customs and traditions that surround Thanksgiving, starting with Q’s Patented “Three F’s of Thanksgiving!”  Next week will hopefully show that Thanksgiving is a fun holiday that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Less than two weeks to go until Thanksgiving!  I can hardly wait!