Advertisement
Singapore markets closed
  • Straits Times Index

    3,224.01
    -27.70 (-0.85%)
     
  • Nikkei

    40,369.44
    +201.37 (+0.50%)
     
  • Hang Seng

    16,541.42
    +148.58 (+0.91%)
     
  • FTSE 100

    7,952.62
    +20.64 (+0.26%)
     
  • Bitcoin USD

    69,854.56
    -651.97 (-0.92%)
     
  • CMC Crypto 200

    885.54
    0.00 (0.00%)
     
  • S&P 500

    5,254.35
    +5.86 (+0.11%)
     
  • Dow

    39,807.37
    +47.29 (+0.12%)
     
  • Nasdaq

    16,379.46
    -20.06 (-0.12%)
     
  • Gold

    2,254.80
    +16.40 (+0.73%)
     
  • Crude Oil

    83.11
    -0.06 (-0.07%)
     
  • 10-Yr Bond

    4.2060
    +0.0100 (+0.24%)
     
  • FTSE Bursa Malaysia

    1,533.88
    +3.28 (+0.21%)
     
  • Jakarta Composite Index

    7,288.81
    -21.28 (-0.29%)
     
  • PSE Index

    6,903.53
    +5.36 (+0.08%)
     

Why I Won't Shop on Thanksgiving Weekend

This year the National Retail Federation expects holiday sales to increase to $630.7 billion, a 3.7 percent increase over last year's total. The projected growth rate bests the 2.5 percent average holiday spending growth of the past 10 years. Americans are planning to spend big on the holidays this year, and they'll be doing much of that spending over the long Thanksgiving holiday. In fact, the NRF projects that 138 million of us -- nearly 60 percent of holiday shoppers -- will do at least some of our shopping over the four-day Thanksgiving weekend.

However, the NRF can't count me among them, because like every year, I'm sitting out the big holiday shopping weekend. Here's why.

1. Working on holidays isn't great.

During college, and for a couple years after, I worked a number of service industry jobs. Waiter. Barista. Staffer at a gourmet deli. Lots of us have held -- or do hold -- these kinds of jobs. I've worked minor holidays like Labor Day and Memorial Day. I've worked major holidays like Independence Day and once, Thanksgiving. One Christmas Eve the manager at the deli extended business for five hours to accommodate last-minute shoppers, a move that kept me and my colleagues away from our own holiday plans (and me from my own last-minute shopping scramble). The holidays can be stressful and difficult, but service workers bear the brunt of it.

ADVERTISEMENT

When I do trek out, it will be with a smile, a kind word for the staff and a lot of patience.

2. Thanksgiving is a rare and special holiday.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Part of that is because my birthday sometimes falls on Thanksgiving, and that's always given the day a little extra shine. But it's also the food, which is rare and special, and the warmth of the kitchen when it's cold out, and the football games on a Thursday (which isn't so rare now), and being allowed a second slice of pie for dessert, because it's Thanksgiving. It's rarely seen aunts and uncles who fawn over you when you're little, ask about your career plans when you're bigger and make way when you join them in fawning over little ones who have grown so much since the last time you saw them.

The precise details of Thanksgiving change as life carries us among an array of friends and families and their own annual traditions (not everybody eats turkey), but the constants remain -- rare and special meals prepared in warm kitchens and shared among well-meaning people. I'm too invested in all of that to lose it at the shopping center.

3. Time spent with family can be time well spent.

Over the past few years Thanksgiving has been at my father's place, back home, which is several hours away by car. My brother and his family live near my father, so they'll be there, and also my father's in-laws, and perhaps a stray boyfriend or girlfriend of a nephew or niece or cousin. It'll be a full house. As in previous years, I'll help my father with the turkeys and the key sides -- cooking became one of his hobbies when he retired several years ago. I look forward to those hours with him in the kitchen; they carry me back to growing up and working beside him in the yard or the garage learning skills I didn't know I would need. Meanwhile, everyone else bounces in and out to share advice or a story or maybe to voice an opinion I don't agree with.

It's not often we can share time with family near and far, to build up those bonds or just to enjoy their company for a few hours (even if we gossip about what was said later). I'd lose that, too, if I spent the day shopping.

4. There are deals on other days, too.

Have you ever noticed that carmakers are constantly promoting special monthly or seasonal deals? This time of year the cars are wrapped in bows as snow gently falls -- but you better buy now before the deals end after the holidays. Marketers know that they can encourage people to buy with limited offers and discounts with expiration dates. The thing is, with rare exceptions, it is never too late. In January carmakers will roll out new promotional campaigns, with discounts and offers remarkably similar to the current ones. If you miss the big Black Friday discounts, trust that in a few weeks, as retailers push for every remaining holiday dollar, they will offer remarkably similar "last-minute" promotional discounts and deals. And if they don't? Shop around and ask for a lower price. You'll likely get it.

5. The holidays are hard enough already.

After Thanksgiving, it's only four short weeks to Christmas Eve. And in those four weeks there will be gift shopping. There will be holiday parties to attend. There will be regular work to be done, and fewer work days to get it done. Why not take one last weekend for yourself to charge up? After you clean up Thanksgiving dinner, make as much of the weekend about enjoying the holidays. For many, Christmas decorations traditionally go up the Saturday and Sunday after Thanksgiving, when there's still plenty of time, and we haven't grown weary of Christmas carols yet. The hard work of the holidays will come soon enough. Let's hold it at bay until we turn the calendar to December.

Lars Peterson is an editor for Wise Bread, a personal finance blog that covers financial products and help readers find the best cashback credit cards.