The Monday after Thanksgiving has long been an additional holiday in Pennsylvania. A day off work. A day with special observations and rituals.

And one with a lot of prayers said as hunters call upon a higher power for a little divine assistance in bagging the biggest deer possible.

But not this year. In 2020, things changed. Hunters were able to hit the woods on Saturday — and if they didn’t find their quarry then, Sunday too.

It might seem like this would be something the hunters would be all over. It was a hot topic for months as the Pennsylvania Game Commission debated it.

Some have welcomed it. The move obviously benefits those who have the weekend off but can’t take more time during the week to pick up a rifle. That could mean a serious expansion of the activity in a state that depends on it.

Hunting is more than just a hobby in the Keystone State. It’s valuable in keeping the deer population in check — important in a state with a significant amount of agriculture and a lot of roads.

It’s also a serious industry, with hunters spending almost a billion dollars a year, and resulting in more than half that generated in paychecks for related businesses.

But for others, changing the first day of hunting season is like changing the date of any other holiday — just kind of odd. The most obvious parallel might be when Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving up a week to extend the holiday shopping season. It was not well met and was promptly moved back to the fourth Thursday of November.

“We like the Monday start. (The move) takes away from the tradition,” said Gary Gorecki of Mt. Pleasant Township while hunting with family and friends.

That’s a factor that shouldn’t be ignored.

Let’s hope it is offset by another factor in 2020. With the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic response, many people are facing food insecurity. In Pennsylvania, that has meant overwhelmed food banks and long lines of cars waiting for access to distributions.

But hunting has long been more than just a sport for a large number of residents. It is a way to fill the freezer to provide meals for a family. One deer can equal two or three months of something on the dinner table. If more than one person in the household hunts, it can double or triple, keeping families fed for most of a year. Hunters Sharing the Harvest can help extra venison from other hunters find its way to those tables through food pantries and community assistance centers.

So maybe the tradition won’t be exactly what it was, but maybe this year the tradition can take a backseat to the necessity. Two extra days in the woods might not seem like a lot, but for a hungry family, it might mean everything.

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