Really? American Retailers At “War With The American Family?”

Townhall.com ^ | October 20, 2013 | Austin Hill

[Springfield Reformer]

Color me one of those “wrong-headed” conservatives. While I gladly acknowledge the free exercise of commerce, its good for culture to have natural points of harmony between faith and commerce, where we as a people take some time, in unison, as families, to thank God for His many blessings. It’s a good and healthy practice, and I for one am sad to have lived to see its demise in progress. It is something lost.

[momto6]

I work in a very small town c-store, everyone in town knows that if there is something they need after closing they can call me or come to my door and I will go the block to the store and open up for them. In three years it has happened twice, amazing how respectful people are sometimes.

We are closed on Christmas and Easter. We used to be closed on Thanksgiving but I started volunteering to work till 2pm so that the town could have black friday papers and some place to get gas and coffee before heading to their families houses.

I LOVE working Thanksgiving, LOVE it, everyone is in a great mood, and they are thankful that they can pick up the tub of cool whip that they forgot, the gas they didn’t think they would need etc. I get off at 2:30 or so and head to grandmas house where my family is waiting for me. We eat and have a great time. I can’t wait till Thanksgiving this year, I just hope that I will be recovered enough from my fusion surgery to be able to work it this year.

[C. Edmund Wright]

You are wrongheaded, and I’ll tell you why - in all of your self righteous splendor:

I totally agree it is good for natural points of harmony between faith and commerce....but only a moron would think it’s good to agree with the anti commerce communists atheists in order to achieve it. When you lie down with dogs......you get more than fleas....you get their stenchy poop all over yourself....go take a shower and give liberty a chance.

[Springfield Reformer]

In what way have I joined with the anti-commerce communists? I think you misread my post completely. Completely. Try again and get back to me. Or else explain how you’ve read my mind at such a great distance, because I have absolutely no idea how you got what you got from what I said.

[sbMKE]

Columbus day is a sacred government and banking holiday. Ironic that the lefties love the time off to honor a white man that they despise.

[greene66]

You’re not alone. I find it particularly grotesque, seeing the time-honored holidays and their historic place in our culture being supplanted by something like the ugly and downright-farcical insanity of “Black Fridays” and its mob of zombie consumers, rushing through doors like a pack of rats in a grain elevator.

[EBH]

I don’t know about your Dad, but my nieces and nephews thought I worked for Santa Claus... as well as a few neighbor’s kids too...wink, wink.

I think, as someone who worked the holidays, it was all a matter of attitude. And I do mean that from the very bottom of my heart.

From the bells I used to attach to my shoes to the understanding that my own actions could make or break the ‘spirit’ of the season for someone...or in some cases restore someone’s faith in the future...

Maybe I wax too nostalgic at times about those years, but when I look back on them now, I am glad I was a part of them.

A couple years ago I took a part-time job at a local garden center for the holidays. I worked the ‘front of store’ for them as a greeter, customer service, and all around person. They never had so many people actually stop and write compliments about ‘that lady at the front.’ LOL.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Here are some great, sinful Thanksgiving recipes, to make this holiday memorable. They really liven up a table.

(this is one with a gazillion calories, but amazingly good.)

Egg, Asparagus and Cheese Casserole

6 tbsp butter
3 tbsp chopped green pepper
2 tbsp grated onion
4 tbsp flour
2 cups milk
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper

Saute until tender in top of double boiler, then add flour and blend. Gradually add milk and cook until smooth and thick. Add salt and pepper.

3-15 oz drained cans of asparagus
6 sliced hard boiled eggs
American cheese slices
3/4 cup buttered crumbs

Alternate layers of asparagus, egg slices and cheese slices, and sauce in a large, square baking dish. Top with final layer of sauce and buttered crumbs.

Bake covered in 350F oven for 20 minutes.

************
(You should start this one soon, so that it will be full flavored by Thanksgiving. I grew up with these, and always thought beets tasted great.)

Pickled Beets

3 cans sliced beets, drained
4 hard boiled, peeled eggs
1 thick sliced onion
1 tbsp pickling spice
1 heaping tsp sea salt
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 bay leaf

Add ingredients to jar then pour over them, boiling a 50/50 mix of cider vinegar and water to cover plus an inch. Seal and refrigerate. Pickling time is a minimum of two weeks.

**************
Chocolate Cheese

1 lb Velveeta Cheese
1 lb Butter
4 lb Confectioners Sugar
1 cup Cocoa
2 tsp Vanilla

In large saucepan, slowly melt cheese and butter together.
Sift sugar and cocoa together. Add to melted cheese mixture, stir until completely dissolved. Mixture will be stiff. Pour into greased 9x13 pan. Allow to cool in refrigerator, frost. Store covered in fridge.

Frosting Ingredients:
8 oz. cream cheese
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. Vietnamese Cinnamon (regular cinnamon will work, but
not be as spicy)
1 tsp. Grand Marnier

************
(This also needs to be prepared starting soon.)
Rum Fruitcake

I recommend getting a good quality fruitcake in a tin, then once a day for an entire month, remove the lid and sprinkle one tablespoon (no more, or it becomes mushy) of Myer’s Dark Rum over the top before resealing. At the end of a month, it is served in thin slices as an appetizer, and has substantial muzzle velocity. Traditionally, a small plate with whole cloves sits nearby, one or two of which are chewed to conceal the rum smell.

**********
(Magnificent on hot bread with butter.)
Ginger Apple Honey

1 cup finely chopped fresh ginger root
5-6 large apples (tart-sweet crisp ones such as Prima or Jonagold)
2 cups water
6 cups sugar
2 tsp powdered ginger
chopped crystallized ginger

Peel ginger root and chop fine. Quarter apples, remove peel and core and cut in slices. In pressure cooker combine ginger root and apple. Stir in water.

Pressure cook for 10 minutes. Break up tender apple slices with a potato masher. Add sugar and stir well until sugar is dissolved. Cook (uncovered) on high for at least another 20-30 minutes or until jam stage is reached at 220F to 222F, with a candy thermometer. Add powdered ginger and crystallized ginger and stir. Let cool completely. Ladle into small containers, seal and freeze until needed.

[C. Edmund Wright]

That’s easy.

First, the ginned up outrage that is the point of the articl is a creation of the anti capitalism left in the first place. Ginned up outrage is key component of the left’s battle strategy, and you fell for it.

Second, to blame businesses, who are merely reacting to the culture, not creating the culture, is absurd and again, something that is always done by the left. It is always America’s fault. It is alway the fault of the profit motive, etc.....

Third, the whole underlying premise is that productivity and profit are anti-family is just more communist witchcraft thinking. If a guy needs to work Thanksgiving to help support his family, then who the hell are you to say that shopping on Thanksgiving is anti family. If a small business needs those sales to stay in business, who the hell are you to criticize?

FTR, I have never shopped on Thanksgiving, the day after Thanksgiving, or the day after Christmas in my entire life - and I don’t intend to ever do so. I hate that it’s come to this, but to join this obviously leftist movement in some sort of pharisaical self righteous pro family flapdoodle is to be a tool of the left.

And clearly, you don’t realize it......(yet)

[C. Edmund Wright]

I find it particularly grotesque, seeing the time-honored holidays and their historic place in our culture being supplanted by something like the ugly and downright-farcical insanity of “Black Fridays” and its mob of zombie consumers, rushing through doors like a pack of rats in a grain elevator.

I do too, but what's even more grotesque is you joining a leftist rant about it, blaming the wrong people.

[Springfield Reformer]

Fail. I wasn’t even responding to the article or accepting any of its premises. I was being nostalgic. That’s it. Sheesh. Epic fail. Try again.

[SaraJohnson]

You LIEbertarians are bimbos.

[Pining_4_TX]

Retailers may very well have killed the golden goose anyway. By taking Christmas out of Christmas (happy holidays and all that BS), they have also removed the reason people went shopping at a certain season. Why shop for Christmas presents to be given on Christmas day if nobody cares it’s Christmas any more?

Many people are now waiting for the after-Christmas sales to buy gifts, even as they have forgotten the reason there was a Christmas shopping season in the first place.

I don’t see this as a bad thing. Christians should reclaim Christmas and celebrate the birth of Christ without all the secular trappings. For that matter, there shouldn’t be just one day to give thanks to God. The secularists have already turned Thanksgiving Day into National Guilt Day. Phooey on them.

[rwa265]

There are men that watch the football games.

---

There was one Thanksgiving back when I was in high school when we were watching a football game. As the meal was being placed on the table, the first half was coming to an end and we (Dad) decided we would start the meal at halftime. As the waning minutes of the first half dragged on, my sister said: “It wouldn’t take so long if it wasn’t for those darned instant replays.

[Mad Dawgg]

"Wealth needs to be created before it is spent."

Apparently Congress missed "THAT" particular memo...

[Mad Dawgg]

Its their stores they can set whatever hours they want. However it doesn’t mean I must shop there on a Holiday or any day for that matter.

[Kit cat]

I work for another VERY HIGH END retailer they have also decided to open at 8:00 on Thanksgiving this is not a really big deal, however if they
decide to open at anytime on Christmas that is where I draw the line!
Our last season was VERY slow not looking for it to be much better this
year. More and more folks are shopping on line not dealing with the mall
madness!!!

[Mad Dawgg]

"More and more folks are shopping on line not dealing with the mall madness!!!"

I am a internet shopper and a hardcore one at that...

I dig driving the back roads of America to see the sights but a daily commute or driving to a damn mall just annoys me to no end. I hate crowds and I hate retail stores in general.

Internet shopping is heaven for me. If our local grocery stores would offer delivery I would cease all brick and mortar commerce posthaste. On the other hand flea markets I luv. Because you find interesting stuff usually of a bygone era.

So Macy's and everyone else can open 24/7/365 or not. It still won't get me to enter their stores.

[C. Edmund Wright]

I wasn’t even responding to the article or accepting any of its premises. I was being nostalgic.

Dude, or dudette, I gotta NEWSFLASH FOR YOU: when you comment on a message board, and you comment on the subject that launched the thread, then unless you make it damned clear -- the correct assumption is that you were commenting on the article. To comment on something else means you were just wasting folks' time with a ridiculous drive by comment.

[napscoordinator]

I find this to be a boon for capitalism which is what America is. Some of you want capitalism with a dash of socialism. This is great for business in a capitalistic society is positive.