When I was growing up, Thanksgiving Day was always the start of the holiday season. In fact, Santa Claus would enter Macy’s Department Store at the end of the Thanksgiving Day parade to officially open Christmas shopping season.
The retail industry has changed a lot since then.
The 2019 holiday shopping season has officially begun with reports of traffic around every shopping mall in the area – shoppers taking advantage of Black Friday sales. And it wasn’t just on Friday, of course. These retail sales last the entire weekend through Monday.
Then someone came up with the idea of Small Business Saturday, contrived to help small business make some sales while customers may still have some money left to spend.
Then Cyber Monday. Another date created by retailers to encourage people to shop online.
And at the end of the line – Giving Tuesday – a day designed to be the international day of charitable giving. Animal shelters and re-homing agencies always need your donations and hopefully, you will have some left over.
Giving Tuesday banner from the Michigan Humane Society
It seems to me that the priorities are backwards. I’d rather see the Friday after Thanksgiving be the day of giving. Give thanks and then give to others who are more in need…
(All of this focus on buying stuff does my head in)
Kathleen Crisley, Fear-Free certified professional and specialist in dog massage, rehabilitation and nutrition/food therapy, The Balanced Dog, Christchurch, New Zealand
DoggyMom.com 