Thanksgiving is celebrated on the last Thursday in November. The day after is commonly known as Black Friday. It is the day when Christmas shopping begins. Possibly because most Americans have the Friday off and time to go shopping. When I lived in the US, I never really paid much attention to Black Fridays but this year I cannot avoid it – TV ads, newspapers, news, signs in shops.
It seems every shop is open early. Many open at 5am, some at 3am but strangest of all are the outlets in Aurora which open from midnight to 10pm. Who is going shopping in the middle of the suburbs at 2am in the morning? Once I did enable a clothes shopping trip in Cork at 2am but it was after a night out so one of the girls could get new black trousers to wear to work the next morning – somehow I doubt such customers are the target market. (BTW black trousers 2 am on a Sunday morning in Cork – Tesco is your only option)
I find the obsession with sales on Friday disturbing. I always liked Thanksgiving as it wasn’t about gifts like Christmas but really about spending time with family and loved ones. But now it seems that the next day’s shopping has taken over.
I have already spent a lot of money of this trip so will be spending Black Friday meeting my friend EG for lunch and TI for dinner.
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