Black Friday

Sooooo, are you out in the crowds shopping till you drop?

There was one year blond headed daughter and I braved 4 AM to

get in the shopping mode.  It was fun event--just that one time!

We timed our stores to find breakfast at one store, better bargains

at another--we stood in line, conversed with strangers, laughed

and was merry!  We weren't involved in any big fights--everyone was

happy and enjoying the day.

That was then--this is now!  I'm shopping online and let USPS, UPS or FEDEX

deliver my packages.  Of course, I'm a few years older and the grands are

adults so they don't want those special priced games or toys.

Here's wishing you a peaceful Black Friday!

Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States (the fourth Thursday of November). Since 1932, it has been regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in the U.S., and most major retailers open very early (and more recently during overnight hours) and offer promotional sales. Black Friday is not an official holiday, but California and some other states observe "The Day After Thanksgiving" as a holiday for state government employees, sometimes in lieu of another federal holiday such as Columbus Day.^[2] Many non-retail employees and schools have both Thanksgiving and the following Friday off, which, along with the following regular weekend, makes it a four-day weekend, thereby increasing the number of potential shoppers. It has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2005,^[3] although news reports, which at that time were inaccurate,^[4] have described it as the busiest shopping day of the year for a much longer period of time.^[5] Similar stories resurface year upon year at this time, portraying hysteria and shortage of stock, creating a state of positive feedback.

The earliest evidence of the phrase Black Friday applied to the day after Thanksgiving in a shopping context suggests that the term originated in Philadelphia, where it was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic that would occur on the day after Thanksgiving. This usage dates to at least 1961. More than twenty years later, as the phrase became more widespread, a popular explanation became that this day represented the point in the year when retailers begin to turn a profit, thus going from being "in the red" to being "in the black,