What I Really Know About Day-After-Thanksgiving Shopping

Spirited Suprise

It was Nov. 29, 1963, the day after Thanksgiving, in Youngstown, Ohio, where I was managing the Santa Photo Shop at our biggest department store. Soon after opening that morning, we had a long line of harried parents—their faces touched with sadness over President Kennedy’s assassination a week earlier—and their young children, who couldn’t wait for their turn with Santa. The line stretched from Santa’s Throne through the toy department and to the elevator doors. The parents were impatient to get on with their shopping. Santa was doing his best, without shortchanging any child.

At one point, the elevator doors opened, and a young boy in a wheelchair exited, pushed by an elderly gentleman, his grandfather, I assumed. The man looked at the long line, and said, “Should we come back another day, Johnny?”

The boy’s disappointment was obvious, but before he could respond, a young girl at the end of the line spoke up: “You can get in front of me.” The grandfather was touched by the child’s generosity, thanked her and wheeled Johnny in front of her.

Then the next child in line spoke up: “Here, get in front of me.” This happened again and again, as one child after another gave up a place in line. I heard no complaints from the parents as their children chose to wait a bit longer for their turn. I sincerely hope those children got an extra gift from Santa that year. I’m certain they each earned a smile from their God.

Shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, you just might run smack up against the spirit of the season.

By Judith D. Ackerman, Sanford, NC

Ongoing Traditions

As far as I am concerned, there is just one peril to after-Thanksgiving-shopping: you may establish a tradition that will break your heart when it can no longer be maintained.

For more than 20 years, my daughter and I scoured the ads on Thanksgiving Day, plotted our itinerary and synchronized our watches and alarm clocks. At five a.m. on Friday, we dressed in comfortable clothes and shoes, grabbed a quick cup of coffee and headed out. We shivered in lines so we would be amongst the first 100 shoppers and would get a bag of treasures or sometimes a certificate for merchandise. We joked with other people in the line about the insanity of what we were doing and shared a brief camaraderie with them. We laughed at the foolish frenzy as we and what seemed like hundreds of others attacked each bin of marked-down something. We accompanied the piped-in holiday music with unabashed abandon. We oohed and aahed – and sometimes tsk-tsked – over the elaborate holiday decorations.

By ten a.m., our feet were aching and our arms were loaded down with packages, so we headed off to the nearest coffee shop and enjoyed a long breakfast with lots more coffee and some heart-to-heart talk. We had great fun. We shared a closeness often missing in our separate busy lives. When family members said we were nuts, we just smiled.

Now distance and time have put a period to this wonderful day we spent together each year. Still, my daughter wrote that this year she plans on taking my 15-year-old granddaughter on an early morning excursion the day after Thanksgiving. Maybe traditions don’t have to end after all.

By Roslyn L. Katz (Carlsbad, CA)

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