Good morning, John.

Today, here in the U.S., it is Black Friday—the day that we turn off our lights between 6:00 and 7:00 P.M. to honor all of the sailors lost at sea before the introduction of the U.S. Lighthouse Service in the 1700s—is a fact that I wish was true, but it's not, and that would be lovely though, something like that. But no, instead it's like one day where we're all like, "I'm so grateful for what I have," and then the next day it's like, "I gotta get more stuff." Now look, of course holiday shopping is not about getting more for yourself. It's about getting some stuff for people you love, so I'm not not saying it's bad but it is weird and also it's not weird because it turns out that Thanksgiving is on the day that it is for shopping reasons. But if you think you know this story, it's weirder than that.

Early in the history of the U.S., we had a holiday that we no longer have. It was called Evacuation Day and it happened on the last Thursday of November. It was the day that the British left this country for good until of course they came back, which they do now largely to shop weirdly enough. Eventually, Thanksgiving kind of took over for Evacuation Day completely, and in most states it was the last day of November which Lincoln decided would be the entire country. And after the Civil War was over and Reconstruction happened, everyone indeed celebrated Thanksgiving on the last day of November. Now, if you are clever and from America, you will note that's not when we are celebrating Thanksgiving this year. This year it's the second to last Thursday in November, but some years, it is the last Thursday in November and how the heck did that happen!? Oh boy!

Well in 1939, Franklin Delano Roosevelt decided all on his own Thanksgiving should be the second to last Thursday in November to give people more time to shop before Christmas. And he decided to let America know about this on October 31st. He was like, "Y'all, this is great. It's gonna be November tomorrow. Thanksgiving is gonna be on a different day than you thought. Happy Halloween! Trick or treat!" People hated this. Now, a lot of people who really loved FDR were like, "Yeah, we'll give it to you," but most people hated this. Like 70% of the country was like, "Why would you do that, especially especially on such short notice?" Especially opposed to it were all the people who hated FDR of which there were many. They indeed mockingly called it Franksgiving after Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His main Republican challenger, the guy who ran against him, said that he had sprung this on an unprepared country with quote "the omnipotence of a Hitler." So those people very much wanted to keep Thanksgiving where it was, the last Thursday in November. That also didn't happen.

Because of this entirely unhinged Franksgiving situation, a bunch of different states started celebrating Thanksgiving at different times and Congress actually had to step in and say, "Okay, we're gonna make a compromise and that's gonna be the most confusing of all possible options. Thanksgiving will not be the last Thursday of the month or the second to last Thursday of the month, it'll be the fourth Thursday of the month!" I'm 43 years old. I am still confused about this. I'm like, "How could it be the 23rd this year when it was the 28th last--that doesn't make any sense!" And so, Thanksgiving can happen anywhere between the 22nd and the 28th of November which I find annoying. This new rule gave us a few more days of the Christmas season, but it does turn out that FDR was at least like a little bit right because on years where there are more days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, employment numbers in the U.S. at least significantly increased. So yeah, for a little while, there was a separate Thanksgiving for Republicans and Democrats. Adorable. Very American of you, America. And that is why Black Friday is today and not a week from now, which it would have been if FDR hadn't got his bright idea.

But it is Black Friday and I should tell you that at good.store we already donate 100% of our profit to charity so look, you don't need to use a discount code. There you can find my Cancer Socks, which I'm also wearing right now and all the money from those goes to make access to cancer treatment more equitable. There are still two Garfields a day going out in those. If you don't know what that means, that's fine. good.store also offers the amazing Awesome Coffee Club and Sun Basin Soap. Sun Basin Soap has several holiday boxes priced from $25 to $99. You can do a lot of holiday shopping at good.store, and if you go over $75, shipping will be free. Another nice gift or just nice thing to have for yourself is a calendar, and Complexly has done four of them. We have our James Webb Space Telescope, our microphotography from Microcosmos, the delightful illustrations of Bizarre Beasts, and the Eon's calendar of some of your early ancestors. Those do have a 10% discount right now if you use the code "savethedate" 'cause that's cute, right?

And final thing, I finally did the 2022 Nerdfighteria Census. Been a little busy this year, so I didn't get around to it until now, but it was really fun and lovely and it is uploaded on hankschannel. John, I'll see you on Tuesday.