Thanksgiving was always about the parade, the turkey dinner, and the magical window display at Eighth Street and Nicollet Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. Brown paper had covered the windows of Dayton's department store until the last finishing touch was in place. No one got a peek until Thanksgiving.
     After the relatives said good-bye and headed home, my family piled into the station wagon and drove downtown to join the cars circling the block to get a look at the animated window dressing. We children put on hats and mittens while Dad and Mom looked for a parking spot. Then we walked across the busy street with other families of onlookers—all part of an even bigger holiday scene.
     Today, I'd like to stand in front of those windows and yell like Albert Finney in the movie, Network, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." That's exactly how I feel about the Big Apple retailer occupying the building that previously bore the Dayton name proudly across its front.
     When we lived out East, my husband and I couldn't wait to take our young children to the Thanksgiving parade put on by that huge New York department store. We sat on lawn chairs at the edge of the curb and waved at celebrities riding by on floats. We were awestruck by the huge character balloons bobbling their way down the road.
     Living that close to the big city and its fancy shopping emporiums, we still missed our favorite department store back home, the one owned by the Dayton family. Where every Christmas my siblings and I had our pictures taken with Santa Claus, a tradition continued with my own children. Even when we lived in New Jersey, a "home for the holidays" trip included Dayton's eighth floor Santa land.
     I'd grown up shopping with my mother at Dayton's downtown store. We often had lunch in the Sky Room on the 12th floor. When Mom and Dad thought I was old enough, I was allowed to ride the bus downtown with my girlfriends on Saturdays. We always headed to Dayton's junior department. It's where Mouseketeer Annette Funicello autographed her Pineapple Princess record album for me.
     When Dayton's was sold and became Marshall Fields, it was a loss. After a suitable mourning period, I stopped calling it the Store Formerly Named Dayton's because, even though it lost its friendly family feel, it was almost as good.
     But now, that huge New York store, the one that produces the Thanksgiving parade, has bought up every Marshall Field's store. And done nothing to make me think they are any good. They may have continued the Christmas wonderland on the eighth floor, but they can't get my bill straight.
     When they delivered a defective chair in April, their technician agreed it should be replaced. But he spent his lunch hour at my neighbor's garage sale and forgot to turn in the paperwork. Three months later, another tech came to the same conclusion as the first. "Take it back," I said. "This never would have happened with Dayton's." In August, they picked up the chair. In September, deferred billing kicked in for the long-gone piece of furniture.
     But that's not the worst part. The company's plan to cut costs means the lay off of 285 employees in Minneapolis. That's 285 Minnesotans—and me—who will stand in front of the television set on Thanksgiving morning and yell about how mad we are…Mad as hell. Those turkeys.