I just saw a bunch of stats on CBS Sunday Morning about Thanksgiving. One of them said "7% of us will dress up". I have a feeling this used to be a larger number.
My first reaction to this was relief. (I hate to dress up). My second reaction was a bit of sadness because I recall some Rockwellian photos of families sitting around a table in their 'Sunday best' while Father began carving the turkey. I began to wonder why - as is my wont.
I wonder if our propensity in times past toward dressing up for special occasions was a reaction to our former agrarian and industrial laborer circumstances? If we got dirty and worked hard during the week, then when we had holidays we wanted them to be a stark contrast to those circumstances.Now, such a large proportion of us earn our living at desks. And, even those of us who work in physical jobs would probably say they prefer the modern ways of their job over the same way that job would have been done 20, 50 or 100 years ago. And, most of us who work physically have a prescribed mode of dress or a uniform for our job just as surely as the desk worker has a dress code of some sort.
Therefore, we enjoy dressing however the heck we want to dress on holidays - again in stark contrast to our workaday lives.
Just wondering...as is my wont.
