Gray Thursday: Another holiday tradition

My family is still getting used to the full-blown American Thanksgiving.

I’m Armenian-Lebanese. I’m pretty sure no one’s ever even seen a turkey in either Armenia or Lebanon.

Most Thanksgivings we would cover the standards: having family over or traveling to see relatives, and though I didn’t get to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade or play touch football with the neighborhood or family, I’d still have a good time.

As the years progressed, the meal on the table became progressively more and more American. I would see mashed potatoes and green bean casserole next to the leg of lamb and kofta.

I mean, I’m not complaining. The more food, the better, and chubby little Ike has always had a penchant for American food.

Something else started to change over the years, though.

Black Friday, the day of copious sales in almost every major retailer across the country, became a bigger and bigger deal. Black Friday became such a big deal that it literally began to start at midnight, the minute after Thanksgiving was over.

But wait. This is America, so we have to do it even bigger.

We’re at the point now where Black Friday is a two-day celebration.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Gray Thursday.

Last year, stores such as Walmart and Target opened to the public for their massive sales not on the Friday after Thanksgiving, but on the evening of Thanksgiving itself, and it was dubbed “Gray Thursday.”

How could they? What a sin. The sacredness of Thanksgiving is tainted.

I don’t care. I love it.

Here’s the deal. What all these purists don’t realize is consumerism is not only a good thing but the best thing.

I didn’t learn too much in Advanced Placement Macroeconomics, but I’m pretty sure that for a capitalistic country to do well the people have to spend, spend, spend.

That’s what Black Friday and Gray Thursday are. All those stupid toys and pressure cookers and video games and bicycles and cute skirts are all pumping money back into companies and stores. That means jobs. That means taxes for the government.

That’s one of the big reasons the Christmas season is so magical. On top of being the season of giving (insert other corny cliché here), it’s also the season in which our economy gets the biggest boost.

There’s no way to argue that our economy doing well is a bad thing.

So this year after the Thanksgiving feast, instead of succumbing to my mashed potatoes and leg of lamb-induced coma, I’m going to rally my brother and my best friend, and we’re going to hit up the nearest Wal-Mart.

And we’re going to spend our hearts out, because, dammit, we just really love the United States of America.

Plus a 50-inch television for the price of a week’s worth of meals isn’t so bad, either.

­— ihajinaz@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Ike Hajinazarian on Twitter @_IkeHaji.