For Those about to

katy777  I'll salute you and all preparing their Thanksgiving meal for family and friends. It is definitely a labor of love. I used to do it all by myself since being a military family we often were not stationed near to our extended families. This year the only dish that I had to make was a double batch of fresh cranberry and orange relish. I'll be driving a short distance to have Thanksgiving dinner with my daughter and her family at her sister in law's home. They are doing most of the preparations however their husbands are cooking the turkeys in the smokers. Fortunately my daughter and son in law were able to be there for the whole week as the grandkids had this week off from school. My daughter's mother and father in law will be there too for a total of 12 people counting adults and children. I am so looking forward to it!

 tth1 Thanksgiving is when the pilgrims reached America and started a colony here. It used to be a day of gratitude. I had 6 people. Same as Christmas, without  mass. Christmas we have more people, just by 2.

So we all get the day off, although some stores open at 6pm. And the unfortunate retailers have to go to work, and the people working do not volunteer to do so on a family holiday.

Today (Friday) is when stores have big sales and open as early as 5am.

I was at Ulta at 8. (Free bathrobes with fragrance purchase) before they ran out of them.

I got 3 fragrances and 3 bathrobes.

It's called Black Friday. The term is for retailers to be in the black, not red ending the year.

Start of the Christmas chaos. Stores close here in northeast at 6. So no time for 7 fish dinners for them. Christmas Eve dinner here for my family is a big deal. We then go to midnight mass.

I can only give you my own personal perspective about the importance of Thanksgiving versus Christmas but I think that Thanksgiving is a pretty big deal here in the U.S.
Some historical facts about Thanksgiving are that George Washington proclaimed that a day of public thanksgiving should be celebrated on November 26, 1789. It was celebrated off and on nationally in the fall without a specific set date. It wasn't until President Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Proclamation that Thanksgiving was regularly commemorated each year on the last Thursday of November.
In 1939, however, the last Thursday in November fell on the last day of the month. Concerned that the shortened Christmas shopping season might dampen the economic recovery, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a Presidential Proclamation moving Thanksgiving to the second to last Thursday of November. This resulted in disagreement among the states and for two years two days were celebrated as Thanksgiving. The President and part of the nation celebrated it on the second to last Thursday in November, while the rest of the country celebrated it the following week.
To end the confusion, Congress decided to set a fixed-date for the holiday. After the usual back and forth Congressional debate, a resolution to establish the holiday as the fourth Thursday was passed. President Roosevelt signed the resolution on December 26, 1941, thus establishing the fourth Thursday in November as the Federal Thanksgiving Day holiday. Since it is a federal holiday, the federal employees have the day off and most places of business do give their employees the day off. I was fortunate that the Drs. office where I worked also was closed on the next day.
To me Thanksgiving as compared with Christmas is a more festive gathering of your extended family in celebration of faith, family and food. It's gathering together to reconnect with people who are close to you emotionally but perhaps not close in physical distance. It can get rather hectic depending on how far you have to travel and by what means. If it is a large number of people who attend then normally they bring side dishes and/or dessert while the hosting family provides for the main course of turkey, ham or a vegan version. Several of my family members are either vegans or vegetarians while a few have food sensitivities that need to be considered. Giving thanks to God for family and for bounty is the main theme of this feast.
Christmas in my family was a calmer and a more intimate celebration with just the immediate family and the focus was on the birth of Jesus. Yes we did the Santa Claus thing when our children were young but even then the emphasis went towards religious beliefs. We always had an Advent wreath which was used at our evening meals. Kids were involved in either lighting of candles or saying prayers according to their ages. A Christmas creche was the first thing that I purchased to celebrate the season once married. At first it was just the Holy Family and a stable but each year it gained more Fontanini pieces. The creche was always put up before any additional Christmas decorations were. When our kids got old enough to appreciate a mystery, I would hide baby Jesus some where near the creche until Christmas eve when He would appear in His manger crib after midnight Mass. They never found out where I put Him! It still confounds my daughter to this day but now she also hides Jesus to appear on Christmas day. I no longer put up a large Christmas tree but do look forward to setting up an Advent wreath and my nativity scene.

We have Black Friday too but it is longer than Friday. It very often starts the week before. i don't bother with it much. Never found a good deal worth having. I think it's like other sales: they're trying to get rid of stock they can't move so they knock down the price.