海角大神

Many will say Thanksgiving grace a little differently this year, thanks to the bounteous Black Friday gifts now available in stores on Thursday, even before the dishes are done:

Lord, as we gather at the counter of the food court this Thanksgiving Day, we thank You for our blessings. We thank You for Kohl鈥檚 and Macy鈥檚, for Toys R Us and Target, for Walmart and Best Buy and Penny鈥檚. We thank You, too, Lord, for Polo, for Uggs, for Chanel. Please shower Your mercy on those less fortunate among us 鈥� especially those who have no friends or family coupons to redeem, and especially those still driving around the parking lot in search of a spot. Oh, and, Lord help the poor.

The cornucopia of stores now open on Thanksgiving Day has drawn a visceral 鈥淣O鈥� in many circles: I know I will not shop on Thanksgiving, but I don鈥檛 want anyone else to either. I simply don鈥檛 like the idea of having shopping be possible on Thanksgiving at all. It dampens the enthusiasm for spending one day each year together atop Walton鈥檚 mountain, so to speak.

But the retailers have thrown down the gauntlet, defying an entire people to just try to wait till the turkey鈥檚 put away to do some shopping. 聽It sets the whole of us back on our heels. It puts that panic-y 鈥済otta get it done鈥� feeling back in your stomach on the very day you want room in there for peach pie. You might not succumb to the lure of the loot, at least not this year, but your mom might, or your sister, upsetting the womb of the day. Maybe the teenagers start clamoring to get out of the house, and after all, what difference is there, really, between the mall and flag football? Between picking out a TV and snoozing in front of your own?

But wait. Isn鈥檛 what we鈥檙e doing all year in the stores the set-up for this very moment? Isn鈥檛 providing the backdrop for this kind of feeding and being fed and resting awhile together the very reason for all the shopping in the first place? Or at least a good deal of it?

Adrienne Lyles-Chockley, assistant visiting professor of philosophy at St. Mary鈥檚 College, understands all this. But she says that despite the complaining about stores being open, they wouldn鈥檛 be open unless there were people going in. 鈥淭here isn鈥檛 anything inherently wrong with shopping on Thanksgiving,鈥� she says, but she suggests that families, before following in shopping lockstep, can inventory their values to make sure that their holidays reflect the family they want to build.

鈥淢any people have a shopping ritual, but think about whether that鈥檚 really the kind of ritual you want your family to have,鈥� she advises. Then, too, there are the larger concerns 鈥� the fact that your shopping means somebody else has to work that day, for instance, or the association of early Christmas shopping with frenzy and with deal-hungry mobs. Consider whether these issues should affect your decision. In short, do the consistency check on your family鈥檚 values, making sure actions and intentions jibe.

Ms. Lyles-Chockley says that the choice about shopping starts with the individual, but that, as many individual families intentionally refrain from shopping in order to keep Thanksgiving sacred, it becomes its own kind of fad. 鈥淚t becomes easier [for others] to say 鈥榳e鈥檙e opting out of this.鈥� 鈥�

Back to the dishes.