Some links may be affiliate links. We get money if you buy something or take an action after clicking one of these links on our site.

Christmas All The Time is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Black Friday Matters

What has become a holiday shopping tradition for many actually started with a darker meaning. Let’s take a look at the origin of the name and at the implications it has for the shopping holiday today.

What is Black Friday?

The current understanding of Black Friday is that the official kick-off to the holiday shopping season is when the retailers’ accounts go from red (loss) to black (profit).

Where did the name come from?

The earliest reference to “Black Friday” had nothing to do with Christmas at all. On September 24^th, 1869, a rash of gold speculating resulted in a “gold panic” that resulted in a lot of financial hardship nationwide.

The term “Black” was traditionally associated with stock market crashes and other financial disasters.

For instance, “Black Tuesday” was October 29^th, 1929,  when the stock market collapsed entirely and began the Great Depression. The Great Depression lasted a full decade.

The use of the term “Black Friday” in reference to the day after Thanksgiving was first heard in Philadelphia in 1966. The police used the term to refer to the mayhem associated with crazed holiday shoppers. There were lots of accidents, confrontations, fights and other hassles that made it a “Black” day for the care-worn policemen.

After years of negative association, retailers began to rehabilitate the term around 1981. They tried “Big Friday” but it didn’t take. They couldn’t shake the “Black Friday” label, so they decided to give it a positive spin. That’s when they applied the logic of being the day when retailers’ books go from red to black.

The Dark Side of Black Friday

As much as the better part of four decades of positive spin is worth, Black Friday still has a number of unpleasant connotations.

For me, it’s just the idea of getting out of bed at O Dark Thirty to go bargain shopping that makes it a non-starter. My kids and my sister-in-law love to roll out to the madness of King of Prussia and other intensely retail sites, but I prefer to get my shopping in at an earlier date rather than an earlier hour.

Violence

Even today, Black Friday is known for any number of travesties.

Door-buster sales literally lead to people being trampled to death by crowds who have been waiting impatiently to get in.

Shoppers fight each other in the aisles for the hard-to-find items that everybody wants but few can keep in stock.

Even the parking lot isn’t safe. From fender-benders between frantic shoppers hastening to their next shopping destination to people actually shooting each other over “stolen” parking spaces, Black Friday can be a black day indeed.

The specifics can be found at sites like Black Friday Death Count, but the point remains that even in these days of global communication and traffic apps warning you of back-ups in your path; the least pleasant aspects of human nature show their ugly faces when stress and selfishness collide.

Myths & Rumors

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 2013, a meme started going around that the origin of the term “Black Friday” was associated with the practice of selling slaves off at a discount.

It was the day after Thanksgiving when slave traders would sell slaves for a discount to assist plantation owners with more helpers for the upcoming winter, ~Unfounded meme

Fortunately, this is absolutely untrue but it continues to do the rounds on the internet periodically. The holidays are supposed to be a time of harmony and togetherness, but some people love to fan the flames of cultural division in spite of the season.

Some of the less ominous myths  are centered around dispelling commonly held beliefs about Black Friday.

• • Black Friday is the busiest shopping day of the year – Actually, “Super Saturday” (the Saturday before Christmas) has proven to bring more foot traffic. Some people even procrastinate on buying Christmas gifts!
  • Use it or lose it – Retailers would have you believe that skipping out on Black Friday will result in missing out on killer deals even though they scatter sales strategically throughout the holiday shopping season to maximize sales.
  • Black Friday is a single day of unbeatable shopping  – Not anymore. Black Friday is effectively now a week-long shopping extravaganza that can be enjoyed by early-risers like my kids or slugabeds like myself. In fairness, it’s quickly getting to be like the alternate world depicted in the Sliders episode, titled “Season’s Greedings“.

The Bright Side of Black Friday

Just as retailers in the 80s helped to rehabilitate the name, internet mavens are helping to rehabilitate the experience. There are specialists who keep track of all the hot sales so you can plan your shopping excursion. Here are just a few of these diligent bargain hunters:

• Black Friday
• Best Black Friday
• The Black Friday
• Brad’s Deals
• CNET
• The Krazy Koupon Lady
• The Penny Hoarder

Show me the money

It may or may not be true that Black Friday is the day that the accounting logs go from red to black, but the holiday season is certainly well known for being the time when retailers reach their annual profitability.

In order to achieve this, they have honed their sales techniques. With adequate advanced planning, they can offer amazing deals on products that they know are guaranteed to be hot sellers and still be in profit.

The fact is that retail markup is usually in excess of what is needed to cover costs, pay staff and all the incidentals. When something is marked up well over what is needed to cover costs, it’s not that hard to mark it back down in order to move merchandise in massive numbers.

Christmas Magic

It’s a bit of a shell game, but it’s actually part of the magic of the holidays. Prices on hot products magically drop so that sales volume can make up the difference. Padding isn’t just for Santa suits!

However you prefer to spend Black Friday, I hope you have a lovely holiday weekend with friends and family.