Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the United States, is historically one of the busiest retail shopping days of the year. Many consider it the "official" beginning to the holiday season. I call it the official beginning of complete hysteria. Most retailers will open very early and provide massive discounts on a select number and quantity of their products. You must be the first in line and wait all night to get the deal. The opening times vary and are complete insanity. Just tonight TV commercials reported stores opening at midnight, 3:00 a.m., 4:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m., 6:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. One store (I cannot remember which is opening Thanksgiving Day at 4:00 p.m. Others will be open most of the day. Soon we will have to cancel Thanksgiving so as not to interfere with the Black Friday sales.
Although Black Friday is typically the busiest shopping day of the year in terms of customer traffic, it is not typically the day with the highest sales volume. It is just the craziest day. The highest sales are usually either Christmas Eve or the last Saturday before Christmas.
The origin of the name, "Black Friday" does not come from any color or movie title by the same name. Back in the very olden days when accounting records were kept by hand, red ink indicated financial loss while black ink indicated profit, thus coining the popular fiscal terms of being "in the red," (losing money) or "in the black" (profitable). This term only dates to the 70-s and came into popular use in 2002. I guess they have been struggling all year and in this last month they make it all back and can go home to a good Christmas. Of course, the nest day they have to go back to work and take all the things back again.
Canadians don’t have to deal with all this nonsense and maniacal behaviors, lucky people, then neither so I. I don’t receive the 10 pounds of newspaper ads on Thursday so don’t wade through them. I have no reason to head out in the middle of the night to shop. Sanity and safety is more important to me than standing in a line for two hours to save a few dollars. Besides, I can’t stand that long any more.
No, I will sleep in. I will roll over about 7:00 a.m., shut my eyes again and go back to sleep. I’m in not hurry. My Christmas shopping is done. I did it last month. A habit I picked up from my wife.
2 comments:
Hey Clyde thought I would catch up on my reading of your blog...great stuff..aren't you glad you spent so much time in Canada--SNOW, WHAT SNOW..Sk was -40 this week
-40, I loved that weather. Crisp, clean, clean — enough to burn you lungs out. Man I miss that — Don't you. I'll tell you what I do miss — regular contact with my friendly Cunucks. Great friendships.
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