Black Friday: The Unofficial Start To The Holidays

For many, Black Friday sparks the surge of the holiday shopping season.

It’s when many are ready to start appropriately celebrating the impending holiday, packing away their Fall festive decorations, propping up their Christmas trees and getting the best deals on gifts for their loved ones.

Black Friday, just one day after the population shares their thankfulness, people find themselves crowding stores and parking lots with thousands of others to honor in such a way, the “unofficial start to a bustling holiday shopping season”.

“In a non-retail sense, [Black Friday] described the financial crisis of 1869, a stock market catastrophe set off by gold spectators who tried and failed to corner the gold market, causing the market to collapse and stocks to plummet,” BlackFriday.com writes on its website.

However, since the start of the ultimate Thanksgiving Day Parade at Macy’s in New York City in 1924, the day following Thanksgiving has been known as prime shopping territory.

In the 1960s the actual term “Black Friday” in a shopping sense was coined. “Black referring to stores moving from red ink (a loss) into black ink (a profit).” Since, retailers have realized the true impact Black Friday can have ‘on the books’, finding catchy and enticing ways to “draw big crowds by discounting prices”.

Some retailers have decided to even extend their reach by opening early to anxious shoppers, some while the Thanksgiving turkey is still in the oven. A decision which has caused some to rush to the store early, while others boycott the exact stores which choose to do so, indicating that even retail workers – who often work overtime on Black Friday to deal with unruly crowds, deserve one day off to celebrate thankfulness and good eats with their families.

Locally, many businesses like the stores in the Oxford Valley Mall and Walmart will be open on both Thanksgiving and early on Black Friday morning. Over the past several years, local retailers have stepped up their holiday sales efforts. Small Business Saturday was created by American Express in 2010 and aims to help local retailers capture post-Thanksgiving shopping dollars.

Nonetheless, Black Friday serves as the ultimate electronic and toy buying day- where even the technology illiterate shop for the best and cheapest in televisions, cellphones and digital cameras – hoping to top last year in savings and woo their friends and families once again with gifts they won’t forget.