Social Entrepreneurship

What Thanksgiving Means for the New 'Experience Economy'

by Nathaniel Whittemore

category: Society

Published November 26, 2009 @ 05:00AM PT

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If you go to the grocery store and stand in front of the lunch meat section for too long, you start to get pissed off at turkeys. You see turkey ham, turkey pastrami, turkey bologna — somebody needs to tell the turkeys, “Man, just be yourself.” - Mitch Hedberg

Growing up, Thanksgiving always played second fiddle in my symphony of early winter holidays. I didn't particularly love football, the day required an overwhelming amount of family coordination, and more than anything, it just couldn't hold a candle to the lights, decorations, and yes, presents that would follow just a month later.

Christmas on the other hand, what a holiday that was. We were a "get the tree while the Thanksgiving Turkey was still hot" sort of a family, largely because I wanted the maximum possible time alloted to the celebrations.

And man did we draw that sucker out - from the ever increasing number of traditions we used to extract every ounce of anticipation before the day itself to the methodically slow and precise manner of opening presents one by one on Christmas morning to savor every last drop.

Yet as I got older, an interesting thing happened. Whereas once the main draw was the bounty of new goods under the tree, and the experiences around it simply means to the end of enjoying the unwrapping even more, what I loved began to shift.

The things that existed around Christmas came to matter more and more, and I found myself gradually caring less about specific presents and even specific traditions. What mattered more was the smell of greens, wood fires, hot cider, twinkling lights, and a sense of calm and continuity that has no clear articulation. Christmas became for me an experience.

For those who love it, Thanksgiving has always been an experience holiday. While the media stories we have around Christmas seem to always have some element of overcoming consumerism to find true value, Thanksgiving has never taken on the same sort of commercial air. Its a holiday that starts with sharing food, that for many extends to sharing a football game, and that - God willing for the retail economy - has a post script that's all about the experience of bargain hunting, insane lines and Black Friday sales.

In many ways, I see the early emergence of a shift from a consumption economy to an experience economy. Travel, events, great shared meals - these sort of "experience" purchases, usually shared with other people - often lead to a deeper emotional reward than the same money might spent on additional things. This shift seems to me to be part of our larger re-evaluation of meaning and success. In that economy, Thanksgiving hits deep.

It's a holiday that is more about simple delights than complicated, expensive joys. If Christmas celebrates the magic and majesty of redemption, opportunity, and new beginnings, Thankgsiving is about the magic of the mundane, and appreciating the sort of freedom that, as David Foster Wallce put it, is all about "being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day."

(Photo: riptheskull)