Song of the day:
Black Friday has always been one of my favorite days. I love getting out and about early, seeing the festive decorations in the malls and stores, seeing the joy in the faces of those getting what they wanted. It’s never been about the big deals for me. I’ve never cared to stand in line for that $37 big screen TV or whatever. In fact, I’ve successfully avoided those events. Don't get me wrong, getting the deals is great, but for me, it’s more about the start of the Christmas season.
This has changed in recent years with the addition of Thanksgiving night shopping - something I have also enjoyed on a few occasions. It’s also changed with the early Black Friday deals many retailers offer a week or two before Thanksgiving. Black Friday was supposed to be a one-time thing. If you didn’t get your deal that day, too bad. It was for the die-hards, the power shoppers, the people willing to get up at the crack of dawn and drive all over town to get everything on their lists.
I was thinking about how Black Friday came to be this morning…who started it? Why is it called Black Friday? So, I did a little internet searching…an article in The Telegraph had the most complete information. Here are the highlights in case you don’t want to read the whole thing:
The term "Black Friday" was first associated with financial crisis when two Wall Street men bought a ton of US gold with the hope that the price would go up and they’d be able to sell for huge profits. However, the gold market crashed on a Friday in September, 1869, and the two men were left bankrupt; the term “Black Friday” was born.
When shops in the US recorded their accounting details by hand, they noted profits in black and losses in red. It is thought that many shops were "in the red" throughout most of the year but they later "went into the black" the day after Thanksgiving, when shoppers bought a significant amount of discounted merchandise. But it was police officers in Philly in the 1950s who first linked the term “Black Friday” to the post-Thanksgiving period.
Large crowds of tourists and shoppers came to the city the day after Thanksgiving for the Army-Navy football game, creating chaos, traffic jams and shoplifting opportunities. Police weren’t able to take the day off since there were so many things to manage. Many had to work extra long shifts and started calling the day “Black Friday.” Merchants tried to get them to use “Big Friday” instead, thinking “Black Friday” held negative connotations but the original name stuck.
Interesting note, “Black Friday” didn’t arrive in the UK until 2010, courtesy of Amazon.
I’m not going out this year for obvious reasons, but I’ve already placed a Target order that I will pick up later. It’s nothing festive though…just normal stuff that I need like chips and popcorn. I’ve done most of my shopping online this year, which is highly unusual for me. I much prefer to visit stores and see things, to have the whole experience of shopping, but that just wasn’t in the cards this year. I’m not holding much hope for it happening next year either but maybe 2022. Time will tell.
So what about you? Have you ever been a Black Friday shopper?