From Mother's Kitchen to Black Friday: The Changing Face of Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is almost here, and we know what that means: stuffing ourselves with turkey, stuffing, and all the fixings. We begin the meal with turkey and end it with a slice or two of pumpkin pie, or if you’re from the South, a massive slice of Pecan Pie topped with a scoop of Cool Whip. As for drinks, being from the South, we would wash it all down with gallons of sweet tea. As I grew older, the drinks became stronger.
Thanksgiving is all about eating, connecting, and reflecting. Before the big day, we were still working on the leftover Halloween candy. Also, our thrifty parents snagged a lot of candy from the clearance shelves at Walmart, the Piggly Wiggly, and the A&P. On Thanksgiving Day, the feast begins around noon or early afternoon for the most part, kicking off the holiday with full plates filling empty stomachs.
Thanksgiving weekend has two purposes: giving thanks and the start of the Christmas season. We pause to reflect on our blessings on Thursday, but by Friday, we shift to shopping mode. Black Friday kicks off the Christmas buying frenzy, and for many. Trimming the Christmas tree and setting the decorations is common on Thanksgiving weekend and of course eating.
In our house, my mother cooked both the Thanksgiving meal and the Christmas meal, with us as her helpers. My father handled the Independence Day and Columbus Day BBQs. Growing up in a family of ten in Appalachian West Virginia, my mother learned early how to prepare large meals. Back then, big families were the norm, and feeding them took skill and patience. By the 1970s, our family of six seemed small but large by today’s standards.
Of course, the turkeys she cooked when she was young came fresh from the yard—hormone-free and free-range, like everything else they ate.
She would start preparing the turkey and side dishes the night before Thanksgiving, cooking them while we slept. My mother would wake up throughout the night to baste the bird and ensure it came out perfect. Today, society views cooking from scratch as old school, unless, of course, you have a cook to prepare your meals (read: rich and wealthy). Since we were not rich, this routine faded as we grew older.
By the 1980s and 1990s, grocery store dinners became the norm. Families could buy full turkey or ham meals, with or without side dishes. While these meals saved time and, some argued, money, they never quite matched the satisfaction of a home-cooked meal. This shift marked the rise of consumerism in Thanksgiving traditions, yet, despite the changes, we still enjoyed our Turkey Day feast.
In the days after Thanksgiving, leftovers dominated our meals. For the next week or so, we could expect remnants of turkey and dressing, deviled eggs, and canned, jellied cranberry sauce in our meals. Turkey and ham sandwiches, turkey and rice, and turkey soup made from the broth of the leftover turkey bones were the second tier of leftovers. She turned leftovers into creative meals, making the bounty last through the week.
Afterward, we loosened our belts and claimed our spots on the sofa, settling in for football. It took thousands of hours of TV viewing throughout the year to perfect the coveted spots on the couch. Between the games, we would make trips back to the kitchen for seconds—or even thirds—of that Thanksgiving spread.
Before the meal and football, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade marked the start of the day. As a kid, I would spring from bed to watch it on TV. The Sesame Street float stood out, and the Superman balloon loomed large in the sky. With a bowl of Cap’n Crunch and a glass of Tang, I would claim my spot on the couch, knowing I would have to give it up later to the adults for the football games. Over time, the parade lost its magic, and I became less and less interested.
Now, I catch clips of the parade on YouTube, sleeping in if I can. The parade itself has not changed much, but the characters have. This year, Pikachu, Gabby from Gabby’s Dollhouse, and Goku from Dragon Ball floated by. The names sounded familiar, but I could not place them. I did recognize Minnie Mouse and Spider-Man, so I did not feel out of the loop.
Thanksgiving began early and stretched late. My mother spent the night preparing the meal while we visions of sugar plums danced in our heads. By the end of the day, we cleaned up and stored the leftovers. Too much turkey—and its tryptophan—left everyone tired, groggy, and on the edge of semi-consciousness but satisfied overall.
BLACK FRIDAY, A SHOPPERS PARADISE
After a full day, we waddled off to bed, only to rise early and face the crowds head on at the malls. Black Friday, a consumer-driven frenzy where the winner takes all—or at least the big-screen TV marked down fifty percent—is the official start of the Christmas shopping season. It is odd how this day of spending follows a holiday meant for giving thanks and leads into a season that celebrates peace and goodwill.
When I was younger, I would drive to Best Buy on Thanksgiving nights to tease and taunt the early Black Friday shoppers. The first time I did this, years ago shocked me. I could not believe the length and density of the line, even though I had driven past these shoppers at year’s end before. I would creep and crawl by them in my car, stopping to chat at times. Most were regular folks, unaware that prices would continue to drop as Christmas neared. Historically prices would reach their lowest point during the after-Christmas sales.
Black Friday starts earlier every year. Stores that once opened at eight a.m. now open at midnight, leaving Big Box employees with less time to spend with their families. Some employees do not mind, taking advantage of the overtime. But with shoppers not pushing back, even smaller mom-and-pop stores are following suit. Meanwhile, online giants like Amazon and Cyber Monday have chipped away at the profits of retailers like Walmart, Target, and Best Buy. Despite the jobs loss to the pandemic, the post-pandemic recession, and inflation, people still find ways to spend, spend, spend during this season.
Love it or hate it, around a third of shoppers plan to take part in Black Friday this year. With interest rising. spending is expected to hit near eleven billion dollars from Black Friday to Cyber Monday—a hair below a ten percent increase from 2023. Last year, the 2023 Black Friday sales broke records for the second year in a row, with $9.8 billion spent, a 7.5% jump from 2022’s $9.2 billion. But shopping, eating, and giving thanks are not the only things people dive into over Thanksgiving weekend.
CHRISTMAS PREPARATION, FA LA LA LA LA, LA LA LA LA
This is the weekend when most people set up their Christmas trees and decorate their homes for the season. When I was small, innocent, and vulnerable I lived in northern Maine. Me and my family would head out to a Christmas tree farm, where we would pick out and cut down our own tree, Griswold-style. We would drive for hours outside of town to the nearest U-Cut Christmas tree lot. We trudged through eighteen inches of snow in freezing temperatures, searching for the perfect tree which does not exist. We did this for a few years, until we moved to Dixie.
After moving to Alabama, we traded snowy farms for Christmas tree lots. Instead of cutting down a tree, we’d choose from dozen of options. Sometimes we would get a Charlie Brown-looking Christmas tree and sometimes we picked a nice one to strap to the car and take home. Some trees stood tall and full, others were short and thin. There were beautiful trees and ugly ones. It was simpler, it worked.
Now, we use a fake tree that we bought at Walmart and stays boxed until Thanksgiving weekend; before that, we had a Christmas tree from Kmart. We would pull the tree out from the garage or attic and set it up. It’s easy, durable, and convient—we kept our last one for eight years before replacing it. Still, I miss those cold, snowy days in Maine when we searched for the perfect tree to cut down and decorate.
We usually had the tree set up in one day, depending on how well the lights worked and how early we started. But when we took the tree down in January, no matter how we packed the lights, they were always tangled by the next year. Ornaments, too—no matter how careful we were, there were always a few broken ones waiting for us.
We were not the kind of family to decorate the outside of the house. No Santa and his sleigh on the roof. No Frosty on the lawn. No lights hanging from the gutters. Our house was not a Griswold-style spectacle. The only decoration outside was a simple wreath on the front door.
When I grew older and moved out, Thanksgiving—and Christmas—lost much of their meaning. Thanksgiving dinner was just another meal, and Christmas felt no different. My Thanksgiving meals, as well as my Christmas meals, turned into a few hours at the Waffle House near my house eating my favorite Waffle House meal: A waffle; a double hash brown scattered, smothered,and covered; and a bottomless glass of Southern iced tea. No decorations. No celebrations. No special meal. Living alone, I didn’t see the point in decorating for myself. The stretch from Halloween to New Year’s became another series of regular days.
IN A NUTSHELL
I sit and watch the lights on my artificial Christmas tree blink out of unison with each other in the corner of my living room on Thanksgiving evening. My thoughts drift and dance and bring delight to those midnight vigils when my mother tended the turkey. I would lie in bed at night listening to her quiet steps walking to and from the kitchen every few hours tending to the Thanksgiving turkey punctuated by the sound of the creeking oven door opening and shutting. We’ve traded those intimate moments for convenience, those family gatherings for flash sales. My shift from wide-eyed parade watcher to solitary holiday observer mirrors a larger cultural change.
What weighs on me is not nostalgia. It is the realization that we have replaced genuine connection with consumption, family time with football, trading the warmth of my mother’s kitchen for the cold glow of Big Box stores. The holidays now feel less about giving thanks and spending time with family and more about finding the best deals and impressing others. Even now, as millions line up for midnight sales or hover over their phones for Cyber Monday, I wondered what traditions will the next generation carry forward?
The answer might not lie in rejecting modern habits or longing for an imagined past. It is about choosing which traditions to keep and which to change. For me, that means no more mocking Black Friday shoppers or rushing through meals alone. Instead, I am learning to create new rituals that honor the gratitude my parents taught me, even if they look different from those in our old family home in Appalachia.
Whether our turkey comes from the yard or the store, whether we gather around a real tree or an artificial one, what matters is pausing to appreciate what we have instead of chasing what we do not. In this season of endless sales and distractions, perhaps the boldest choice is to stay present, be grateful, and remember that you cannot buy traditions.
2024© ElbyJames CC BY-SA
