FDR literally changed the rules for how to calculate the date of Thanksgiving (from "the last Thursday of November" to "the *fourth* Thursday of November") because it so happened that that year (1939) it would add an extra week of Christmas shopping and boost the economyhttps://twitter.com/dynamicsymmetry/status/1329826132997320706 …
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The actual "first Thanksgiving" by Massachusetts wasn't even in November, it was most likely the end of September (Michaelmas, the traditional date for the harvest festival in England) The harvest is *over* by the end of November in New England, it's already winter at that point
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Thanksgiving is in November today because when Abe Lincoln created it, it was already October when he gave the speech and they needed time to get ready
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Also because he was conflating it with Evacuation Day -- a day of "thanksgiving" for the withdrawal of British troops from the 13 Colonies at the end of the Revolution on November 25, the original occasion for George Washington to proclaim a "national day of thanksgiving prayer"
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It has in fact been commented on in other countries, like Canada, that our harvest festival is weirdly late in the year, and there's barely a month between the big fall festival and the big winter one (The whole problem FDR controversially tried to solve with his rule change)
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It would really make a lot more sense for Halloween and Thanksgiving to switch Have the harvest festival at the peak of autumn when the leaves are bright in the air Have the celebration of the spooky and macabre on the cusp of winter with the dark setting in
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Replying to @MrRoyko
Okay but the Black Friday people camping out at the mall at 3:00 am on Nov. 30 are the authentic, hardcore version of trick or treating
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Replying to @arthur_affect @MrRoyko
I'm actually kind of serious about this, part of what makes winter scary is that the predators start to become ravenous and desperate, including the human ones Trick-or-treating is the cutesy tradition we've layered over that ancient primal fear
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Replying to @arthur_affect @MrRoyko
The Black Friday hordes trampling retail workers to death for a $150 TV are, of course, the serious adult channel for this sublimated impulse I do think that Black Friday rage is intensified by how it's the people literally huddled outside in the cold fighting to get indoors
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The South Park Black Friday episode imagining the mall entrance as the Wall and mall security as the Night's Watch and the shoppers as the White Walkers
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