Column: Things I Tell My Wife, by Matthew Knutson

“Are you too cold?” I asked my then-girlfriend (now my wife) as we waited outside for Target to open. It was last Thanksgiving, and the snow had been blowing for quite awhile.

We were the second group in a very long line of Black Friday shoppers because my mom wanted a new television, and we’d been there long before the Target employees showed up to work. Believe me, if you ever want to test love, have your African girlfriend wait outside a Minnesota Target on Black Friday. She lasted the entire time, my mom got the television she wanted and we all lived happily ever after.

That is the new spirit of Thanksgiving. We give thanks on Thursday, and then we spend money on ourselves and others in the name of getting a good deal. I happened to leave Target with a new vacuum cleaner, which I used just yesterday to clean the spare room where my in-laws will be staying on Black Friday this year.

Surely millions have already completed their shopping well before the newspaper was delivered this morning. Each year stores move their start times earlier into Thanksgiving Day which gives columnists like myself a wonderful topic to rant about. At this point in the column I should begin to rant about how our Thanksgiving Day is being lost due to corporate America’s desire to make money. Why can’t we have one day to just focus on our families and truly be thankful?

But I won’t be ranting about Black Friday. To be honest, I’m tired of that keep-Thanksgiving-sacred message. People have been complaining about it year after year, yet the number of late-night Thanksgiving shoppers hasn’t decreased. Was my family less of a family because we didn’t spend the entire day together feasting last year? I doubt it.

Each family has traditions, and perhaps some traditions involve waiting out in the cold to get some great deals.

If Americans wanted to appreciate time with their families, perhaps they should be doing it more than on a few select holidays every year.

As a nation, our actions show repeatedly that money is more important than time with our families, so why are so many people expressing disdain over Black Friday backing into Thanksgiving Day — or what some are calling Brown Thursday? It doesn’t make sense.

When people complain about Black Friday ruining their family gatherings, what they’re really not understanding is that it shouldn’t come down to one or two days a year when you feel like you can focus on being with the people you love.

Instead of blaming heartless corporations, perhaps we should look at our heartless selves. A person has all year to show they care about family members, let’s not limit it to a specific Thursday every November.

This concept has been clear to me for quite some time, but sometimes I forget not every family has gone through a life-altering event.

Ever since my mom was diagnosed with cancer, priorities changed. It’s never all about what my mom wants, but if my mom wants to wait in the cold to get a television, I’m certainly going to be right there with her. I’m sure the Mayo Clinic doctors wouldn’t have advised my mom to spend an evening of her week off from chemotherapy freezing outside of Target, but she made it through it, and we have another (albeit very cold) memory.

It’s one we won’t be repeating this year (thank goodness), but it’s certainly a memory I’m thankful for. Even more so, I’m thankful that my family does a decent job in showing they care year-round instead of just on one day.

Sure, Black Friday does add to the consumerist mindset that causes people to choose money over spending time with their families, but let’s spend some time this holiday season reflecting on how we can chose to make the actual Black Friday an exception to the rule rather than the norm of society. Black Friday isn’t the day that is ruining American values, it’s just a martyr for Americans to attack when they suddenly feel compassionate toward one another.
Matthew Knutson is a marketing specialist at Waldorf College in Forest City, Iowa. Find him online at thingsitellmywife.tumblr.com.