The news was big.

In an announcement on WCCO, television news reporter Esme Murphy intoned, “It’s simply the right thing to do for the 15,000 people who work here. And it’s good business.”

The reason?

Mall of America, in Bloomington, Minn., a concern billing itself as “the largest retail and entertainment destination in North America,” would not open Thanksgiving Day 2016.

In a press release dated Oct. 5, Mall of America Executive Vice President Rich Hoge and Senior Vice President of Marketing Jill Renslow, in a letter to employees and tenants, were quoted as saying “... We have made the decision to close on Thanksgiving Day so that team members can put that energy where it matters most, into making memories with the people they care about most.”

Retail industry watchers soon weighed in, some calling the decision the result of a backlash against “Black Friday creep,” a term found in a recent article on the website RetailDive.com, describing a trend among some top retailers to open earlier and earlier the day after Thanksgiving. Some retailers open their doors Black Friday eve, aka Thanksgiving Day evening, to offer special sales and deep discounts.

Some analysts say the power of Black Friday as a shopping valhalla is weakening and the day is no longer good business because the once-epic power drawing consumers to shop the full holiday weekend is not sustainable in an age of online and other sales in the week(s) leading up to and continuing into the week(s) after Thanksgiving and, ultimately, year-round.

More and more retail workers may soon find themselves passing the green beans, mashed potatoes and pie and stuffing themselves to the point of turkey comas than in recent years. Maybe all the hoopla about working on Thanksgiving will soon subside for some.

But not for all.

This editorial took as its impetus the importance of those who do work the Thanksgiving holiday and who often are not acknowledged in much of the discussion about the subject. First responders, hospital personnel, restaurant staff and transportation professionals such as airline pilots, flight attendants, city bus drivers and others don their work clothes and head to their respective places of employment on Thanksgiving Day. Perhaps you, like me, have noticed food stores among places open for business on Thanksgiving Day, leaving fewer of us to frantically scramble for an open grocery store when we realize, as we take the last look at the dressed table before inviting family members to their seats, we forgot the cranberry sauce.

My plan, dear reader, was to feature the perspectives of some of those dedicated workers in this column; however, plans do not always come to fruition.

Of those holiday workers to whom I reached out, Brian Dietrich, of Lynn Acres, New Tripoli, offered some insight about working on Thanksgiving Day.

Dietrich, a dairy farmer who grew up farming, wrote, “For the major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, we do the bare minimum, such as feeding, milking and cleaning their stalls. Of course, there is no getting around this. ... We try to alternate ourselves and our employees with half days or less, so we can have at least part of the day without working.”

Part of the day, Dietrich noted in parentheses, was three to four hours.

Televised football games on Thanksgiving Day can take longer than the break Dietrich allows himself.

As you gather around your holiday meals, contemplate whether or not to add whipped cream to your slice of pie when it is time for dessert, or stake your claim to the best spot on the couch for football viewing, take a moment please to be thankful for those like Dietrich caring for livestock and farmlands, the ER doctor patiently tending to a patient, the wait staff quietly clearing your table for the next course, the police officer patrolling the local street, the pilot or bus or taxi driver who may have brought you safely to your destination and the retail worker preparing to sell you that deeply discounted flat-screen television.

Happy Thanksgiving.

April Peterson

editorial assistant

East Penn Press

Salisbury Press