Here in the United States we are officially in the “holiday season.”  The winter holiday season extends from November to January and is marked by a number of religious and national holidays.  The first major holiday of the season is Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving Day is a national American holiday celebrated every year on the last Thursday of November.  It is a day for giving thanks dating back to some of the earliest settlers of the United States in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621.  Giving thanks with family and friends, while eating traditional feast foods like: turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, yams, green beans, carrots, cranberry sauce, pumpkin and pecan pies, mark this holiday.  In modern times though, the day after Thanksgiving has become as notorious as the actual holiday itself.

The day after Thanksgiving is known around the country as “Black Friday.”  It is called this because it marks a shift for retailers to profitability during the busy holiday shopping season. Back when accounting for stores was done by hand, red ink indicated financial loss while black ink indicated profit.  It is from this practice of using red and black ink that we get the terms “in the red”, which means ‘losing money’ and “in the black” which means ‘gaining money’ or ‘profits’.  For instance, a store owner might say, “We were in the red until the sales of Black Friday helped to put us back in the black.”  So, most often, Black Friday indicates a day of big profits for stores and for some stores this one day provides enough profit to turn a whole year of bad sales around.

Black Friday is certainly one of the busiest retail and online shopping days of the whole year.  Most stores open very early, even as early as 1 or 2 o’clock am.  Additionally, the stores usually offer large discounts on some of their merchandise to entice people to come in and shop.   From news reports of parking lot traffic jams and people running through stores and waiting in long lines at the checkout counters, it seems many Americans are indeed enticed to go shopping on Black Friday every year.  Some people even make going shopping on Black Friday a family tradition.

Below are two videos that highlight the cultural importance of Black Friday.  Even though Black Friday has now come and gone, the shopping continues and will keep going strong until the night before Christmas (Christmas Eve).  The next day will be busy at malls and stores too as people go out to exchange gifts they didn’t like and spend money and gift cards.  Happy shopping everyone!

Rebecca Black’s ‘Black Friday’ Music Video

Shoppers going wild on Black Friday