Beep. Beep.My wristwatch marks the hour and my eyes snap open. Prior to today, I didn't know it was possible to sleep while standing up. I guess I wouldn't call that sleeping. Dozing? Yes. Who wouldn't be dozing at 4 AM? Why am I not at home in my warm, soft bed?
Good question. My wife, who is across the store trying to land some Christmas PJ's and a train set, knows the answer. And so do the 50 others crowded around me. 4:01. My watch is three minutes fast. But the feeling of anticipation is thick in the air. It's so palpable, it's impossible not to feel.
I shrug off the drowsiness that I've been fighting for two hours. This is it. Game time. My rivals are just as focused now. All eyes are on the prize--a giant cardboard box in the middle of a crowd of 50 wild-eyed shoppers. There's no turning back now. Bodies are pressed up against me on all sides. There's barely room to shift. I have good position. Only five people stand between me and The Box. The guy on my left starts to jockey for position, looking to box me out with his elbow. I hold my ground, which is no easy task, as a wave of the other guy's body odor hits me like a brick wall. He obviously didn't shower this morning. Then again, neither did I. I steel myself and try to tune out my overwhelmed sense of smell. I will my own BO in his direction in an attempt to fight back.
All of a sudden the store's chime sounds the hour, and complete chaos ensues. I get violently shoved from three different directions at once as I see the store clerk cut the ties on The Box and hit the ground as if in a fire drill. The lid of the box is hurled 20 feet into the air as $2.50 DVDs are grabbed by the handful and shoved into overcoats, pockets, and handbags. I don't want to imagine where some people are stashing the DVDs they get their hands on. There certainly aren't any shopping carts here. Only cheerful holiday shoppers, who are probably a little more full of donuts and caffeine than cheer. 
As I desperately reach out to try to grab a DVD from The Box, I'm pushed back by the same odorous, elbowing guy who has somehow gotten past me and is grabbing handfuls of DVDs. Apparently there is no picking and choosing at The Box. Black Friday shoppers, more experienced than myself, know to grab what you can and to later find a corner of the store to sort through your booty to determine what you will actually buy. I wonder if I'll get my hands on a single DVD. Watching the old lady behind me swing her cane about aggressively, I doubt it. I wonder if there's a Black Friday Black Market located down some obscure aisle of the store for those who end up with excess doorbuster goods in their carts. I wonder what the donut to DVD exchange ratio is. I guess it doesn't matter as I have neither in hand at present.
My reeking rival finally shoves away from The Box box, retreating with his loot, and I see an opening to The Box. I take it. I scan The Box in an instant; it's almost empty. I see one of the five titles I was looking for. I grab it and decide to retreat for safety, clutching that DVD as tightly as I would a fumbled pigskin on a desperate game winning dash into the end zone. As I fight the crowd that's still pressing in and rush forward to the goal line, I see the store clerk curled up on the floor in the fetal position. I know exactly how she feels.
I juke one defender and stiffarm another defensive lineman and break free, crossing the pylons in a burst of energy as the crowd roars! Only then do I look back at the pile of players behind me; the angry mob is now ripping the cardboard box apart in a desperate attempt to find any lingering digital doorbusters. Ducking down another aisle, I run into my pushy friend from earlier. As a peace offering, he hands me two more of the titles I was looking for from his stash without requesting a single donut in exchange.
Eventually, I meet up with Lindsey. She had more success than me, scoring everything off her list. But as for me? Seven dollars and fifty cents and three movies summed up an experience I hope to never repeat again.
*****
Black Friday. I'm not sure what the color black means to every other holiday shopper. I know what it meant to me several years ago when I braved the wilds of Wal-Mart on that adventurous Friday. In the years since, that blackness has crept into Thursday as well. No longer do the Black Friday doorbuster sales begin at 6 AM, 4 AM, or even at the chime of midnight. I heard that many stores will begin their shopping madness this year at 10 PM on Thanksgiving Day. The truly zealous Black Friday'ers are already camping out. I imagine they're settling for turkey sandwiches rather than the full turkey and stuffing feast. I don't think any shopping deal in the world could be good enough to make me miss out on my wife's pumpkin pie!
I'm afraid that over the next few years the Thanksgiving holiday may disappear altogether in the eyes of the retail industry. As it is, we see Christmas decorations and merchandise decking the halls of many major retailers as fast as store managers can relocate all of the unsold Halloween paraphernalia to the clearance racks. But the merchandisers are not alone in their holly, jolly rush to Christmas. More than one local radio station began its Christmas season merry music marathon just one week into November.
Now I love the Christmas holiday. And I was really frustrated when I was in school at BYU and final projects and exams ran my academic stress right up until only a few days before Christmas. I found it very difficult to catch the spirit of Christmas as strongly as I would have liked those years. Since graduation, I've fully enjoyed the entire month of music, lights, decorations, devotionals, holiday baking, and gift shopping and making. It's the most wonderful time of the year!
But as much as I love this season, I find the earlier and earlier beginning of the season in the eyes of retailers, broadcasters, and the populace as a whole a little bothersome. What's happened to turkey and stuffing, turkey bowls and gridiron grapples, pilgrims and cornucopias, and, of course, prize-winning pumpkin pies? I think the answer lies in the pocket books of retailers and consumers. There's little doubt that money makes the world go round. And, truth be told, there's not a lot of money in Thanksgiving outside of the grocery and fowl-farming industries. I imagine there's enough money in Halloween to keep Christmas retailing from creeping too much into October, but there may come a day when Thanksgiving all but disappears in the eyes of most Americans. Wouldn't Ben Franklin be sorely disappointed in that truly-noble-bird-barren nation?
Because of all of this, I was truly impressed when I learned about Nordstrom's Thanksgiving policy. Posted throughout their stores last year were signs that read, "We won't be decking our halls until Friday, November 25. Why? Well, we just like the idea of celebrating one holiday at a time. From our family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving." This year is no different at Nordstrom. Now isn't that wonderful? Not only is the store closed on Thanksgiving, but no Christmas decorations or merchandise will be seen until the day after Thanksgiving. How's that for a celebration of Black Friday that allows for a truly Brown, Orange, and Gold Thursday?
Of gratitude, Cicero, a Roman orator, said, "Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others." Gordon B. Hinckley seems to agree with Cicero in his book on the ten most neglected virtues, gratitude being one of these ten--a virtue which he labels as a sign of maturity:
"Although we acknowledge that far too many people live at the edge of survival, still we must admit that never before in the history of the world has a nation or a people enjoyed such riches and liberties.
"For all this and much more, we should be grateful. And we ought to express our gratitude daily in countless ways--to each other, to our parents and other family members who have contributed so dramatically to our lives, to friends who have given us the benefit of the doubt again and again, to colleagues and associates who motivate and inspire us to reach higher and do better, to prudent leaders who serve selflessly, and, particularly, to a Higher Power from Whom all ultimate blessings and goodness flow."
I've been married for over eight years now. And there are two lessons I've learned more strongly than any of the other many, many lessons I've been obliged to learn. Lesson one: you can't say "I love you" too many times. I repeat this lesson with a caution. The words "I love you" don't carry as much power as the words "I love you because..." Sometimes "just because" may be acceptable, but specificity rarely goes amiss in sharing our feelings of caring for those we love.
Lesson two: you can't say the words "Thank you" too many times. Again, specificity carries added value. Thank you for... "Thank you for dinner darling. I appreciate all the effort you make to have dinner ready when I get home from work. I know how stressful your day can be with the kids, the house, and everything else you juggle. Thank you for helping me feel so special by doing everything you do for me." We all probably feel gratitude more often than we express it. But the holiday is called Thanksgiving, not Thanksfeeling. You can't express gratitude too many times when it is heartfelt, sincere, and specific.
Easier said than done, we must learn to share the feelings of our hearts. Yes, God knows our hearts. He knows of my gratitude to Him. But the Psalmist urged, "Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving [not thanksfeeling]; sing praise upon the harp unto our God: who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains."
King Benjamin also spoke on gratitude, intoning, "If ye should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another--I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another--I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants."
In other words, we cannot repay or earn the grace and blessings that are our rich inheritance from a loving Father in Heaven. No amount of thanksgiving can merit that cornucopia of kindness. But it is a good start.
Gordon B. Hinckley continued his thoughts on thankfulness:
"Gratitude is a sign of maturity. It is an indication of sincere humility. It is a hallmark of civility. And most of all, it is a divine principle. I doubt there is anything in which we more offend the Almighty than in our tendency to forget His mercies and to be ungrateful for that which He has given us."
As a child, I was taught how to pray in four simple steps, which were reinforced through a well-known primary song: I begin by saying Dear Heavenly Father. I thank Him for blessings He sends; Then humbly I ask Him for things that I need, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. In my childhood, I was probably better about spending time on step two in my prayers. As I've grown older and feel more worries and pressures in life, I have to admit that my prayers are more focused on asking than thanking.
I began by sharing my feelings about Christmas and Thanksgiving. I love Christmas. In many ways, Christmas traditions stand out so much more prominently in my memories than Thanksgiving traditions. But I wish to share one Thanksgiving tradition that I've enjoyed since I was a teenager. A New Testament seminary teacher gave my class a challenge one day to go home that night and completely omit step three from our bedtime prayers--in other words to make our prayers one of gratitude only, not asking for a single thing. That seemed simple enough. I determined to try it, though I wondered how short that prayer might be.
Beside my bed, I fell to my knees and began to pray. I prayed out loud to deviate from the norm and to add to the special feeling I was seeking this night. It was easy at first but quickly became more difficult. Thank you for my family, our house, our abundance of food and other necessities, the gospel, Christ's Atonement... After about 30 seconds, I ran out of things to say--the standard set of thanked for blessings from which I usually pull was all used up.
But I didn't want to end my prayer that quickly, especially since this was supposed to be a special prayer of gratitude. I paused for a full minute to gather my thoughts and to truly think about my blessings. During this minute, I broke the rules and asked for one solitary thing--I asked for an open heart and mind so that I could be more mindful of my blessings, those things for which I could offer thanks. Then words began to flow. The more I spoke, the more thoughts came to my mind and my heart. I remained on my knees for almost an hour, and tears filled my eyes before I was done. It felt a little strange to end my prayer, thanking my God for one final blessing and then skipping straight to my standard closing, In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
I remained on my knees for a minute or two more, something I often neglect to do, hearing the call of my pillow more loudly than any still, small voice. I don't know what revelatory response I might have anticipated since I was not asking for one this time. But I did receive a response, a gentle and warm outpouring of the Spirit which conveyed two words very clearly, "You're welcome."
Every Thanksgiving since that night as a teenager, I've made this prayer of only thanksgiving part of my personal traditions for this holiday of gratitude. With a little help from the Spirit, it is still easy to find words to speak. Though my prayers have never rivaled that of Enos, time seems to stand still and lose its importance as I spend an hour in true gratitude of Him who has blessed me beyond measure.
There are not many Thanksgiving carols or songs. But one sung by Josh Groban sums up my feelings: there truly is so much to be thankful for. (You may listen by clicking here.)
Some days we forget to look around us.
Some days we can't see the joy that surrounds us.
So caught up inside ourselves,
We take when we should give.
Look beyond ourselves, there's so much sorrow.
It's way too late to say, “I'll cry tomorrow.”
Each of us must find our truth,
We're so long overdue.
Even with our differences,
There is a place we're all connected.
Each of us can find each others love.
So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be.
And on this day we hope for
What we still can't see.
It's up to us to be the change.
It's up to us to be the change.
And even though this world needs so much more,
There's so much to be thankful for.
