Shelley Duncan-Haslouer: What happened to Thanksgiving products?

I went to the Super Target in Atwater looking for a tablecloth for the Thanksgiving dinner I am planning. I wandered through the store and found nothing relating to Thanksgiving. I asked a clerk where the Thanksgiving aisles were. He said they had nothing in the store that had to do with the Thanksgiving holiday.

But there was a plethora of Christmas ... stuff. I was incredulous. I asked the clerk if he didn’t think it was strange to completely forgo Thanksgiving and instead warp-speed ahead to Christmas? I did a short survey of the Target staff and they all agreed it was a rueful day when the Target Corp. decided Thanksgiving could be tossed aside, as if no one would notice. Well, I noticed.

Thanksgiving. One of our few traditional holidays about our finest human values: family, home, food and sharing. Ignore it? Pass it by for the frenzied Christmas holiday that at one time began after Thanksgiving; a time when we didn’t have to start checking our pocket books and bank accounts and begin the fretful, forced effort of buying, buying, buying and wondering where in the world all the money would come from. Oh, woe is me.

This story was originally published November 18, 2014 at 7:02 PM with the headline "Shelley Duncan-Haslouer: What happened to Thanksgiving products?."