As early as the 19th century, shoppers have viewed Thanksgiving Day as the traditional sta

rt to the holiday shopping season, an occasion marked by celebrations and sales. Department stores in particular locked onto this marketing notion, hosting parades to launch the start of the first wave of Christmas advertisements, chief among them, the Macy s Thanksgiving Day Parade, running in New York City since 1924. The holiday shopping craze became so important to retailers that during the Great Depression, they appealed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 to move Thanksgiving Day up in order to stretch out the holiday shopping season. Roosevelt obliged, moving Thanksgiving Day one week earlier, but didn t announce the change until October. As a result, Americans had two Thanksgivings Day that year—Roosevelt s, jokingly dubbed " Franksgiving," and the original. Because the switchover was handled so poorly, few observed it, and the change resulted in little economic boost.