Tag Archives: Thanksgiving

The 11/29/13 Joy Jar

28 Nov

Today is the day after Thanksgiving or in the shopping world, ‘Black Friday.’ Ryan Goodrich of Tom’s Guide wrote in What Is Black Friday?

The origins of Black Friday
Historically, starting the holiday shopping season on the day after Thanksgiving is largely due to the Santa Claus parades of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Department stores like Macy’s sponsored such events, which they used as advertising vehicles. It then became a common practice to never advertise for holiday shopping prior to the conclusion of such parades.
While parades are no longer as commonly used as the herald to holiday shopping, they’ve succeeded in establishing the day after Thanksgiving as the first day for holiday shopping.
MORE: Amazon to Offer Black Friday Deals Every 10 Minutes
The use of the term “Black Friday” to describe this shopping holiday dates back to 1961 in Philadelphia. It was used to describe the crowded pedestrian and vehicle traffic that resulted the day after Thanksgiving. By 1975, the term gained traction and use outside of the city.
These days, retailers have a different explanation for the term. For many companies, Black Friday marks the point in the calendar year when companies go “in the black,” or finally begin to turn a profit for the year.
Outside of shopping, the use of Black Friday has a lengthy history. Traditionally, the term signaled that something had gone horribly wrong with the economy. “Black Friday” was first used to describe Sept. 24, 1869, when several financiers tried to corner the gold market and instead crashed the market and caused a depression. In 1873, another panic in the financial markets also began on a Friday.
The Great Depression began after the stock market collapsed on Oct. 29, 1929, but that was Black Tuesday. Another bad day for the stock market, Oct. 19, 1987, was called Black Monday.
The negative connotation of the phrase prompted several officials to try and rename the day to “Big Friday” as a description of the types of deals available. However, such attempts were unsuccessful and the name has stuck.
When Black Friday starts
For years, it was common for retailers to open their doors as early as 5 or 6 a.m. to kick off a lengthy day of extreme sales. Between 2005 and 2010, the opening time shifted earlier each year, until stores such as Target and Best Buy were opening their doors at midnight on Thanksgivingnight.
Several retail stores, such as Toys R Us and Walmart, have now taken things a step further to begin their Black Friday deals as early as 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving evening….
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/what-is-black-friday,review-1952.html

If the stores are open, that means that many employees will have the hours they can spend with their loved ones limited.

Karin Klein wrote in the L.A. Times article, Retailers abusing workers: Black Friday’s just the tip of the iceberg:
Retail stores commonly hire as many part-time employees as possible so they won’t have to give benefits as basic as a sick day off. They require employees to keep their time free for the days they’re scheduled to work the next week — but the store thinks nothing of calling them on slow sales days to tell them not to bother coming in. Or worse, after the sales clerks have dressed for work and spent the time and money to commute to the job, the store sends them home mid-shift because too few customers are showing up. Those aren’t hours of paid vacation, you can be sure. People who already earn low, low wages are suddenly stripped of work hours with no opportunity to arrange in advance for other ways to make money.
No one would remain employed very long if he or she called in to the boss minutes before the work day was to start, saying, “Someone else will pay me 50 cents more an hour today, so I’m not showing up.”
It’s basic courtesy, right? Maybe at the social level, people feel more comfortable canceling plans on one another at the last moment. But when it comes to business, time is money — and at these wages, money for basic sustenance. On both sides, schedules should be honored.
People have always worked holidays — gas station attendants, nurses, police, journalists — when they were needed. And with families so scattered and overwhelmed, I’m seeing more friends whose Thanksgiving gatherings are held the weekend before or two weeks after. What matters isn’t the formally declared holiday but the feasting time together in service of gratitude.
I’m no fan of the Thanksgiving shopping trend, but the outrage over holiday work hours seems like one of those easy hits, full of the symbolism that gets people posting on Facebook, talking boycott or calling for new work laws. Yes, the creep into this family and national tradition is a sad sign of greed, but it’s a smaller one than the really damaging effects of greed on low-wage retail workers all year long. Let’s not allow the easy outrage to distract us from the bigger picture.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-thanksgiving-shopping-20131127,0,2718184.story#ixzz2luxhtkON

Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is reflecting on our buying choices affect the lives of others.

Black Friday: Because only in America, people trample others for sales exactly one day after being thankful for what they already have.
Unknown

Sorry shoppers on Black Friday will block and tackle better than your football team on Thanksgiving.
Unknown

Let’s spend Thanksgiving spilling food on our clothes, and Black Friday buying new ones.
Unknown

Happy Thanksgiving to someone I’d have no problem stomping to death on Black Friday.
Unknown

Make sure the clothes you buy on Black Friday take into account how fat you got on Thanksgiving.
Unknown

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The 11/28/13 Joy Jar

27 Nov

Today is Thanksgiving. Christian Answers.net describes the history of Thanksgiving:

In 1789, following a proclamation issued by President George Washington, America celebrated its first Day of Thanksgiving to God under its new constitution. That same year, the Protestant Episcopal Church, of which President Washington was a member, announced that the first Thursday in November would become its regular day for giving thanks, “unless another day be appointed by the civil authorities.” Yet, despite these early national proclamations, official Thanksgiving observances usually occurred only at the State level.
Much of the credit for the adoption of a later ANNUAL national Thanksgiving Day may be attributed to Mrs. Sarah Joseph Hale, the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book. For thirty years, she promoted the idea of a national Thanksgiving Day, contacting President after President until President Abraham Lincoln responded in 1863 by setting aside the last Thursday of November as a national Day of Thanksgiving. Over the next seventy-five years, Presidents followed Lincoln’s precedent, annually declaring a national Thanksgiving Day. Then, in 1941, Congress permanently established the fourth Thursday of each November as a national holiday.
Lincoln’s original 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation came—spiritually speaking—at a pivotal point in his life. During the first week of July of that year, the Battle of Gettysburg occurred, resulting in the loss of some 60,000 American lives. Four months later in November, Lincoln delivered his famous “Gettsysburg Address.” It was while Lincoln was walking among the thousands of graves there at Gettysburg that he committed his life to Christ. As he explained to a friend:
When I left Springfield [to assume the Presidency], I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ.
As Americans celebrate Thanksgiving each year, we hope they will retain the original gratefulness to God displayed by the Pilgrims and many other founding fathers, and remember that it is to those early and courageous Pilgrims that they owe not only the traditional Thanksgiving holiday but also the concepts of self-government, the “hard-work” ethic, self-reliant communities, and devout religious faith… http://christiananswers.net/q-wall/wal-g007.html

Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is Thanksgiving;

“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”
Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

“Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.”
Erma Bombeck

Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.”
W.T. Purkiser

“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual…O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.”
Henry David Thoreau

“Eucharisteo—thanksgiving—always precedes the miracle.”
Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“Thanksgiving-giving thanks in everything-prepares the way that God might show us His fullest salvation in Christ.”
Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“The Christian who walks with the Lord and keeps constant communion with Him will see many reason for rejoicing and thanksgiving all day long.”
Warren W. Wiersbe

“I always think it’s funny when Indians celebrate Thanksgiving. I mean, sure, the Indians and Pilgrims were best friends during the first Thanksgiving, but a few years later, the Pilgrims were shooting Indians.
So I’m never quite sure why we eat Turkey like everybody else. (101)”
Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

To give thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go. Your prayer knows much more about it than you do.
Victor Hugo

The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.
William Blake

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The 11/27/13 Joy Jar

27 Nov

This is the day before Thanksgiving which is a holiday to reflect upon life’s Blessings. Dictionary.com defines giving thanks:

thanks•giv•ing
noun
1.
the act of giving thanks; grateful acknowledgment of benefits or favors, especially to God.
2.
an expression of thanks, especially to God.
3.
a public celebration in acknowledgment of divine favor or kindness.
4.
a day set apart for giving thanks to God.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/thanks-giving

Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the reflection before Thanksgiving.
Great Inspirational Quotes.com has a great selection of Thankful Quotes, Thank You Quotes , and Gratitude Quote:

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues.
Cicero

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.
Albert Schweitzer

Blessed are those that can give without remembering and receive without forgetting.
Unknown

Gratitude is something of which none of us can give too much. For on the smiles, the thanks we give, our little gestures of appreciation, our neighbors build their philosophy of life.
A. J. Cronin

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
Melody Beattie

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.
Brian Tracy

Every time we remember to say “thank you”, we experience nothing less than heaven on earth.
Sarah Ban Breathnach

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
Epictetus

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.
Meister Eckhardt

If you concentrate on finding whatever is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.
Rabbi Harold Kushner

In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It is impossible to feel grateful and depressed in the same moment.
Naomi Williams

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.
Buddha

No one who achieves success does so without the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.
Alfred North Whitehead

None is more impoverished than the one who has no gratitude. Gratitude is a currency that we can mint for ourselves, and spend without fear of bankruptcy.
Fred De Witt Van Amburgh

People who live the most fulfilling lives are the ones who are always rejoicing at what they have.
Richard Carlson

There is a calmness to a life lived in Gratitude, a quiet joy.
Ralph H. Blum

Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out.
John Wooden

You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you.
Sarah Ban Breathnach

You won’t be happy with more until you’re happy with what you’ve got.
Viki King
http://www.great-inspirational-quotes.com/thankful-quotes.html

Practice an attitude of gratitude.

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The 11/26/13 Joy Jar

26 Nov

Moi knows who she IS. She is a conservative Christian who follows a Jewish carpenter named Jesus. Jonathan Mizrahi wrote on his blog, Hanukkah and Thanksgiving:

A once in eternity overlap:
Next year features an anomaly for American Jews – The first day of Hanukkah coincides with Thanksgiving, on 11/28/2013 (meaning the first night of Hanukkah is actually the night before Thanksgiving). I was curious how often this happens. It turns out that it has never happened before…and it will never happen again.
(Correction: it happened once before, in 1888: see addendum below.)

Thanksgiving is set as the fourth Thursday in November, meaning the latest it can be is 11/28. 11/28 is also the earliest Hanukkah can be. The Jewish calendar repeats on a 19 year cycle, and Thanksgiving repeats on a 7 year cycle. You would therefore expect them to coincide roughly every 19×7 = 133 years. Looking back, this is approximately correct – the last time it would have happened is 1861. However, Thanksgiving was only formally established by President Lincoln in 1863. So, it has never happened before. Why won’t it ever happen again?

The reason is because the Jewish calendar is very slowly getting out of sync with the solar calendar, at a rate of 4 days per 1000 years (not bad for a many centuries old calendar!) This means that while presently Hanukkah can be as early as 11/28, over the years the calendar will drift forward, such that the earliest Hanukkah can be is 11/29. The last time Hanukkah falls on 11/28 is 2146 (which happens to be a Monday). Therefore, 2013 is the only time Hanukkah will ever overlap with Thanksgiving. You can see the start date of Hanukkah as a function of time in the attached plots. In the long timescale plot, the drift forward is clear.

Of course, if the Jewish calendar is never modified in any way, then it will slowly move forward through the Gregorian calendar, until it loops all the way back to where it is now. So, Hanukkah will again fall on Thursday, 11/28…in the year 79811. http://jonathanmizrahi.blogspot.com/2013/01/hanukkah-and-thanksgiving-once-in.html

Many Christians acknowledge the Jewish roots of their faith. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has a great explanation of Hanukkah:

The Importance of Hanukkah
I once had a Christian pastor friend who said he thinks that Hanukkah is really a critical holiday for Christians, too. Why, I asked — I knew about the reference in John chapter 10, but nothing more. He said that if the Jewish Maccabees had not risen up against their oppressors, then secularism and paganism would have controlled the Jewish people. And if it would have controlled the Jewish people, Jesus would not have been able to be born as a Jew, to live a Jewish life, to see the Temple, and have the Bible. Judaism would have been wiped out.
He’s right that Hanukkah is a very important holiday. There is an attempt in every generation to rid the world of the Jewish people. And if not, there are those who want to accommodate and negotiate and be flexible. Then there are those who say they can do that sometimes, but there are times when you must draw a line in the sand. When they try to take away my faith I cannot accommodate, I cannot adjust, and I cannot compromise. The Maccabees drew that line in the sand, and they triumphed. If not for their triumph, Judaism would have been gotten rid of by those authorities, and Jesus the Jew would not have been around 165 years later… http://www.ifcj.org/site/PageNavigator/eng/inside/hanukkah

Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is a recognition of the Jewish roots of moi’s faith.

Kindle the taper like the steadfast star
Ablaze on evening’s forehead o’er the earth,
And add each night a lustre till afar
An eightfold splendor shine above thy hearth.
Emma Lazarus, “The Feast of Lights”

Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame
Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness of the heart
Hannah Senesh

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

The miracle, of course, was not that the oil for the sacred light –
in a little cruse – lasted as long as they say;
but that the courage of the Maccabees lasted to this day:
let that nourish my flickering spirit.
Charles Reznikoff, “Meditations on the Fall and Winter Holidays”

Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.
Buddha

We have focused on the miracle-thing and I think we often overlook the message of Hanukkah. To me, the core of the holiday is the cleaning of the temple…. The accomplishment was in restoring the temple to the purpose for which it was built. Now think of the temple as a symbol. Perhaps it represents my life. The world has tried to use me for its own (perhaps good, but none-the-less extrinsic) purposes. But now I can rededicate myself to my own original purpose.
Ralph Levy, “Hanukkah – Another View”

Let the straight flower bespeak its purpose in straightness – to seek the light.
Let the crooked flower bespeak its purpose in crookedness – to seek the light.
Let the crookedness and straightness bespeak the light.
Allen Ginsberg, “Psalm III”

I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders.
Jewish Proverb

Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
Chinese Proverb

Even our misfortunes are a part of our belongings.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,

The darkness of the whole world cannot swallow the glowing of a candle.
Robert Altinger

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The 11/25/13 Joy Jar

25 Nov

Thanksgiving should be the OFFICIAL start of the Holiday Season which includes Christmas and Hanukkah. If you have no faith, then just celebrate being alive. Florida’s Natural has an interesting discussion of holiday traditions in Holiday Traditions. Why We Do What We Do:

Ever wonder how fruitcake became a holiday tradition? Why standing under the mistletoe means pucker up? We’ve uncovered the origins of some of the holiday’s most popular traditions.
Issue: December 2009
Why fruitcake during the holidays?
In 18th-century England, fruitcake had become so prevalent, there were laws enacted to restrict its consumption to Christmas, Easter, weddings, christenings, and funerals. Over time, the popularity of the fruity cake waned at the other occasions, leaving Christmas to be the lone holiday it’s associated with.
What’s the story behind the dreidel game?
When the Syrian Greeks prohibited Jews from practicing their religion, Jewish parents painted Hebrew letters on four-sided spinning tops called dreidels (from the German word, drehen, which means to spin) as a way to preserve their faith. The Greeks thought the Jews were just playing an insignificant game. The Hebrew letters on the dreidel stand for the phrase “A great miracle happened there.” This refers to the miracle celebrated at Hanukkah.
Why do people kiss under the mistletoe?
According to Scandinavian folklore, Baldur, god of light, was killed by a dart made of mistletoe. The tears of Baldurs mother, Frigga, became the white berries of the plant. Frigga decreed that mistletoe would never again be used as a weapon and that she would, instead, kiss anyone who passed under it.
How did the tradition of the Christmas tree begin?
Legend has it that in the seventh century a monk went to Germany to spread the Word of God. He used the triangular shape of a fir tree to illustrate the Holy Trinity. The converted people in Germany then began to revere the evergreen fir. By the 12th century, firs were being hung upside down from ceilings at Christmas as a symbol of Christianity. The first decorated tree is said to have been in Latvia in 1510.
Why light a menorah during Hanukkah?
Hanukkah is the “Festival of Lights”. The Hanukkah Menorah commemorates the Jews’ miraculous victory over the Greek-Syrian army (thousands of years ago) and the one-days-worth of pure oil that miraculously lasted for eight days in the Temple. Jewish custom insists that every family should light the wicks of the Hanukkah Menorah each night for eight days of the festival. The Hanukkah menorah contains nine candleholders — eight for each of the eight nights of the celebrations and the ninth, called Shamash, used only for lighting the others.
Why do people kiss at midnight on New Year’s Eve?
A centuries-old legend claims that the first person you come in contact with when the clock strikes twelve sets the tone for your happiness and fortune in the New Year. A kiss with one you love equals good things, but kiss someone other than your true love, or no one at all, and misfortune is said to be heading your way….http://www.floridasnatural.com/lifestyle/household-advice/holiday-traditions-why-we-do-what-we-do

Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the Holiday Season.

“In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it ‘Christmas’ and went to church; the Jews called it ‘Hanukkah’ and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say ‘Merry Christmas!’ or ‘Happy Hanukkah!’ or (to the atheists) ‘Look out for the wall!”
Dave Barry

“Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.”
Erma Bombeck

“Humanity has always conquered the flux of natural time by means of a rhythm between active and passive time-spans. To reconquer his holidays, to establish a new and better time schedule for life, has been the great endeavour of man ever since the days of Noah.”
Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Out of Revolution: Autobiography of Western Man

“You know if the U.S. Government wanted to boost the economy there’s a simple solution make Black Friday the refund date for your state and federal taxes”
Stanley Victor Paskavich, Return to Stantasyland

I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up – they have no holidays.
Henny Youngman

Holidays are about experiences and people, and tuning into what you feel like doing at that moment. Enjoy not having to look at a watch.
Evelyn Glennie

I celebrate everyone’s religious holidays. if it’s good enough for the righteous, it’s good enough for the self-righteous, I always say.
Bette Midler

All holidays can be good times.
John Clayton

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