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ext week we will embark on two of the weirdest consecutive days of the year, but also two of my favorite.

Thursday we will celebrate Thanksgiving. A day marked by great food, family, football and of course a parade. Besides Christmas, Thanksgiving is far and away my favorite holiday. Easter is great for the spiritual aspect and who doesn’t love an egg hunt and I do love Halloween candy. Valentine’s Day is awful except for the heart shaped SweeTarts that I can’t seem to get enough of and the chocolate.

For some reason, Thanksgiving holds a special place for me. I think it is because it is simple and wholesome. You wake up and watch the parade and then football provides the soundtrack of the day along with the crashing of pot and pans, as the feast is prepared.

My family always eats early on the day and then grazes leftovers throughout the evening. It is a day to be thankful and be together and it doesn’t get much better than that.

Then Friday everything changes. After spending a day being thankful for everything we have, we converge on stores and fight tooth and nail for all those things we are pretty sure will make us a little more thankful next year.

I hate shopping, but I do enjoy a Black Friday adventure (see I am very cheap and that present I have to buy for an aunt being half off can’t be beat).

I have started my annual process of looking at the ads online and seeing what deals I am pretty sure I need to take part in. Some gifts I was planning to get will be on sale, my sister and me always have a list of $5 DVDs we need, but probably won’t watch because the movie is on Netflix and I found a couple items on my Santa list that I’ve informed family members are on sale for a good price.

Every year it strikes me as odd that these two days run back to back, though. I get it intrinsically, that Friday officially marks Christmas season (as I mentioned a couple weeks ago I will be brushing off the cobwebs on my Christmas Pandora station that day). But it is in such stark contrast to the day before. Thursday is all about being thankful, it is even in the name and then boom Friday we are shopping up a storm, adding that shiny new flat screen that we probably didn’t need and laying waste in our path at the store. 

In recent years, people can be seen camping outside stores waiting for that TV deal and many stores have actually moved the beginning of Black Friday shopping to Thursday afternoon (two years ago I may have participated in some of that early shopping, but that can’t be confirmed or denied).

This year, my parents will be here Tuesday, my sister Wednesday and some friends from Louisiana will be arriving Friday. I have to work this Black Friday so my family will have to go shopping without me. I can guarantee I will be having leftovers for lunch that day and will send a list to the store with them. Its the way of the season.

Brandon O’Connor is a staff writer at The Vicksburg Post. You may reach him at brandon.oconnor@vicksburgpost.com