Black Friday

I now know the reason how this rare shopping extravaganza received its unusual name.

"Originally, September 24, 1869 was deemed Black Friday; a day of stock market catastrophe. The history of the day after Thanksgiving being the official start of the holiday shopping season may be linked together with the idea of Santa Claus parades. Parades celebrating Thanksgiving often include an appearance by Santa at the end of the parade, with the idea that 'Santa has arrived' or 'Santa is just around the corner'.

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, many Santa parades or Thanksgiving Day parades were sponsored by department stores. These include the Toronto Santa Claus Parade, in Canada, sponsored by Eaton's, and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade sponsored by Macy's. Department stores would use the parades to launch a big advertising push. Eventually it just became an unwritten rule that no store would try doing Christmas advertising before the parade was over. Therefore, the day after Thanksgiving became the day when the shopping season officially started.

Later on, the fact that this marked the official start of the shopping season led to controversy. In 1939, retail shops would have liked to have a longer shopping season, but no store wanted to break with tradition and be the one to start advertising before Thanksgiving. President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the date for Thanksgiving one week earlier, leading to much anger by the public who wound up having to change holiday plans." (Wikipedia)

I know that was a long history, but I'll now give my reason for the name. I think it is because with all the amazing sales and price cuts, peoples darkest souls come out to buy these things. People get ugly out there, pushing and shoving, clawing and fighting tooth and nail to get the limited pile of goodies. Now if you really want to experience this at it's worst, go to an electronics store. By God, you will leave that store a changed person, meaner and bitter. Today I went out to Target, which was crowded as hell, but I experienced something unlike any other. The people were all friendly, even the costumers! It was pretty cool. But then we went to walmart, and the story went right back to its norm. I always say I will never do it the next year, but I usually do. So thats my explanation of how black friday got its name.