The Act of Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a flurry of orange and red cornucopia cardboard cutouts stuck onto supermarket windows and kindergarteners waving turkey-themed arts and crafts at their parents. Thanksgiving, for us, began with Dranksgiving and ended with Cyber Monday, an almost weeklong period of absolute excess. It’s not just Princeton. Overeating and overspending are ubiquitous at this time of year. I’ve almost stopped associating Thanksgiving with Pilgrims and Native Americans, and even less with counting my blessings and actually giving thanks. I think of Thanksgiving as a couple of days off when I can overindulge in cornbread, stuffing, and gravy (the best parts of the spread) while watching endless commercials about Black Friday specials. Our materialist culture, the commercialization of the holiday by corporations, and the fact that most stores now have “early Black Friday” sales which begin on Thanksgiving Day aren’t entirely to blame.