I’ve never been a Black Friday shopper.  Maybe because I generally worked the Friday after Thanksgiving.  And if I wasn’t at work I was down South with family.  Even then we didn’t go shopping.  I can’t figure out what the draw is – I’ve never felt the urge to get up in the middle of the night after a day of overeating,  stand in a line in the dark and cold, just to get a questionably good deal on anything.  But apparently a lot of people do this.

So this year I was surprised when I caught a bit of the excitement myself.  Newscasters everywhere were talking about retailers making sales goals by mid-morning or early afternoon.  There were excited interviews with store owners and managers talking about the crowds being bigger, the sales higher than last year.  Everyone was all smiles.

Here in Michigan the recession started earlier and will last longer than for most of the rest of the country.  That’s the price we pay for being an industrial manufacturing state.   So I am excited that people are spending and sales are up and money is flowing and spirits are rising.

Still.

How much stuff do we need?  Really?  What exactly is so important that you’d get up at 4 a.m. to shop at WalMart?  Or worse – give up family time on Thanksgiving to go to the mall?  And what about those people that have to work Black Friday or Thanksgiving Day so that we can add some more stuff to our stuff-filled homes?  Wouldn’t the world be a better place – calmer, happier, healthier – if everyone stayed home and spent that maniacal shopping time with their families?

I’ve always said that everything should be closed on Thanksgiving.  Especially grocery stores.  I know that having the local grocery open on Thanksgiving is a wonderful thing for those of us not organized enough to make sure we have everything we need to make a fabulous meal.  But truly, if you forgot to buy the cranberries and it’s Thanksgiving morning it’s better for your family to eat something else than to make some poor cashier hang around at work just to save your dinner menu.

If I were Queen of the world we’d all get a 4 day weekend at Thanksgiving.  But only if everyone pledged to spend them at home being thankful for the people and stuff they already have.  Because more stuff isn’t going to make any of us any happier.

Unless, of course, you’re going to purchase the stuff from a manufacturer based in Michigan.