Of course, the first question one must ask when considering membership in a group focused on the promotion of Thanksgiving is whether our efforts are even needed. Just our brave brethren at Occupy Wall Street had to determine "what we want" we need to work in reverse. We know what we want--for Thanksgiving to take a more prominent position in the minds of people during the 4th quarter of the year--so now we just need to justify our want of it.
For proof of the need to promote Thanksgiving I turn to our highest authorities, that vaunted 1% that the Occupy Wall Street-ers are so concerned about. I mean, if businesses (a.k.a. "the wealthy") think that Thanksgiving is generally ignored then that must be the situation, shouldn't it?
Well Party & Paper--a trade magazine for the party, costuming, & wedding industry--had an article earlier this year on this very matter! Apparently the situation was dire enough to warrant a title that read, and I quote "Don't Forget Thanksgiving." It gets worse! The sub header was "There is more to the fourth quarter than Halloween." If the decorations and party supplies industrial complex is concerned about Thanksgiving's lack of revenue generation then clearly it's a major issue.
But you're probably thinking "that's not so bad, maybe people don't buy many Thanksgiving decorations because they re-use them year-after-year." So then perhaps, if we could track the sales of something not reusable we could better evaluate the prominence of Thanksgiving. It just so happens that information is readily available. You've probably heard of Hallmark, right? They're one of the major players in the greeting card industry. Well they happen to provide their own numbers in regards to the number of cards sent by holiday. It's some complex, detailed analysis so let me break it down graphically:
That's right, it seems that this time we're fighting for the 1%. We're through the looking glass people; it's only going to get tougher from here!
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