It's the Friday after Thanksgiving, the biggest shopping day of the year. On my way to work I hear the traffic updates, which are very strange for a weekday morning.

I-95 is clear to downtown, but Biscayne Boulevard is snarled around the Adventura Mall. The Palmetto Parkway is congested in the vicinities of Westland and Mall of the Americas as well as Dadeland a bit further south. And up in Broward, shoppers heading to Sawgrass Mills are making a slow-go of Sunrise Boulevard.

It's the biggest shopping day of the year. You can't forget because it's splashed all over the place, on TV and radio and especially in newspapers which are about as overstuffed with ads as we are with turkey et al following that great American tradition of overeating on Thanksgiving.

Why do we, as a nation, so grossly overeat?

The answer is, because we can. This is one reason why we're so willing to give thanks on Thanksgiving and head to the malls on Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year.

Why do we as a nation so grossly over-consume?

Because we can. And because we have credit cards. Credit cards enable us to do business in the same fashion as the government, that is to buy things without actually having money. The United States, supposedly the richest nation in the world, owes more money than anyone else. It might sound odd, or even absurd, but we're truly the only country that can afford such remarkable debt.

Come the Christmas shopping season which begins with this, the biggest shopping day of the year, we as individual consumers act much like the government when it splurges on things like stealth bomber squadrons. We get out there and buy, buy, buy, not always pausing to read the fine print which might say: For best results, don't expose stealth bomber to rain or other moisture-laden conditions including but not limited to snow, sleet, hail, drizzle, fog and heavy morning dew.

We consume blindly, like human lemmings charging off the cliff of financial despair, plunging headfirst into the unforgiving sea credit card debt. This is not the season to count your pennies but to spend them all on wonderful gifts, most of which will either be traded for something else or sit in a loved one's closet for years until finally being given away to charity.

Uh-oh. I'm beginning to sound like Scrooge. Guess I'm just sore that on this, the biggest shopping day of the year, I have to work. I'd much rather be fighting traffic to get to Sawgrass Mills than cruising to the office down I-95. I'm disappointed to miss the fun and challenge of navigating a late-20th Century American mall parking lot on its busiest day. And I'll miss the thrill of the crowds, fellow humans all who gather together on this extraordinary weekday to shop and/or pick pockets.

It seems to me that the Friday after Thanksgiving ought to be officially recognized as a national holiday so that everyone, including sarcastic reporters and disgruntled postal workers, can have a day off to shop.

We could call it "National Shopping Day." That way, our government could encourage people to show their patriotism by spending money they don't have to support our economy as well as the economy of China, where most of the holiday season purchases are made.

As I sit in my office with nary a Christmas memento in sight, I wonder: What the malls are really like today?

Are they a madhouse of activity, smelling of frankincense and myrrh and pepperoni pizza? Are they adorned with holiday decorations, aglitter in tinsel? Is the air of these decked halls alive with the sounds of Christmas? Jingle Bells and Joy to the World and Nat King Cole singing about chestnuts roasting on an open fire? Do you get that warming chill creep up your spine just from seeing those sights and hearing those sounds, bringing back fuzzy memories of your own innocent childhood when Christmas meant joy and good will and finely wrapped presents and no school for a week?

Are you so mesmerized and enchanted that you don't care how much money you spend so long as you spread a little joy to your world? Can you put a price on your child's smile?

We start early with this holiday consumerism, sitting our kids on Santa's lap, telling him all of those things they would buy if they had access to credit cards. We tell them that they have to pay for their presents by being good, but they instinctively know that's not true, that presents, by definition, are free.

My three-year-old son, Glen, surprised me Thanksgiving Day. While I was busy watching the Detroit Lions play football, he was busy sifting through the Sunday-sized Thursday newspaper, meticulously pulling out all of the advertising supplements that had to do with toys. Then he approached me with the ads in hand and systematically went through them page-by-page, pointing at virtually every toy pictured and saying, "I want to buy that one, and that one and that one..." continually turning pages and announcing his carefully considered acquisitions strategy, "I want to buy that one and that one and that one..." until coming to a page of Barbies and doll houses and skipping it by stating, "That's for girls."

I was surprised that he would have the patience to go through the newspaper in search of toy ads. I was surprised with his attention to detail as he pointed out each choice--jets, spaceships, planes, cars, trucks, Batman, Superman, Power Rangers, Mattel, Playskool, Tonka, Hasbro, Made in China, Mexico, Japan, the U.S.A.--he's an equal-opportunity spender, except, of course, for girl stuff. Actually, I was most surprised by the fact that he said he wanted to "buy" things rather than just "have" them.

Already, Glen seems to be a better consumer than I am. He certainly is more enthusiastic. Later on, when we decided to go for a little ride, guess where Glen wanted to go? Not the movies nor the beach nor even the playground. He wanted to go to the store and gathered together all of the toy ads he'd pulled from the paper to take along.

Like last year and next, he won't get all he wants. We never do, whether we're kids from one to 92. But what we do get out of the holiday season is a child's sense of excitement as we light the menorah or trim the tree, the warmth that those familiar old songs bring to our hearts, the magic of a world dressing up in its holiday finery, and the love that blossoms from fond memories and family ties. And all of those things are worth a bit of credit card debt that we accrue starting today, the biggest shopping day of the year.