Thanksgiving, which took place last Thursday in the United States, is a celebration with an ugly colonialist legacy that marks the unofficial start of the ‘holiday season’ in this country. This period’s brazen consumerism – the Christmas shopping frenzy kicks off mere hours after Thanksgiving – combined with messaging about kindness, generosity and even anti-consumerism generates cognitive dissonance, particularly given there is little to no recognition of those many Americans who find the enforced festivities difficult.
While Black Friday, ‘celebrated’ the day after Thanksgiving, still marks the ‘official’ beginning of the holiday shopping season, these days Christmas merchandise hits the shelves before Halloween. And the panoply of days after Thanksgiving that one is supposed to observe has expanded since the mid-aughts to include Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday (for online shopping!), and Giving Tuesday (for charity!). Is the reason that no one has claimed Sunday deference to Christian tradition? Who knows.
In any case, there is now so much competition for American spending in late November that one not-for-profit I support tried to get ahead of the whole thing by sending out a ‘Giving Tuesday’ email on 14 November, a full two weeks in advance, promising not to send those who donate early another email on 28 November. I can hardly blame them, and yet, to me, all this did was add to the stress that comes with so many demands for holiday spending swirling around.
