Another Dark Friday Ahead

What used to be called "Black Friday", the unofficial start in the United States to the Christmas holiday season, has morphed into more than the day after Thanksgiving of Friday shopping. Retailers who have to leave their families during the Thanksgiving holidays have stopped referring to Black Friday. They now have names for each of the four days of frenetic shopping.  Thanksgiving Day, what used to be a day when all stores were closed so families could gather around a big meal and give thanks for the blessings in their lives, is now "Gray Thursday". Then there is the previously mentioned Black Friday and, what is called now "Super Saturday" and "Cyber Monday".

Super Saturday is for those who were unable to shop on Black Friday ot Thanksgiving Day.  Cyber Monday is the day when all the alleged sales can be purchased on line.  This brings me to the question of the day. Why all the hordes of people at malls and other stores if those same people can buy the same things at the same price on line on Monday? Too, why all the fuss about artificial Christmas sales on those four days when every day prior to Christmas, for another month of so, there will be new sales offered to attract those same shoppers?  Running to a mall at 4 am in order to be first in line at a store, to buy something that can be bought for about the same price, seems a bit illogical to me. But then, I only shop when I have to, not for "fun".

I suspect the word fun might explain the crazed  pre Christmas sales, or maybe it's just a trendy thing to do. Americans are like sheep sometimes. They follow the lead when doing so garners attention to them.  Or maybe this shopping addicted insanity is a social bonding experience where the shoppers, exhausted and dazed, see other shoppers in the same condition and feel better for suffering in packs. Hmmm Perhaps they actually like the experience, a sado masochist one of sorts. What we find is fun varies according to our perspectives.

Surveys have also shown that despite the steady streams of people flowing into stores on Black Friday, not all of them drive home with trunks full of holiday presents. For instance, one study conducted by researchers at Indiana University found a consistently low rate of purchase among Black Friday shoppers. This tends to affirm the idea that Black Friday, ironically, isn't about buying those presents. It's more a bonding experience by the herd....sort of like cattle drifting aimlessly on the plains, achieving little. But i n the days before malls were open during Thanksgiving Day and weekend, all of the great deals were on Black Friday, but now the shopper sees some great deals on Black Friday and lots of offers throughout the season. So what's the point? 

Maybe I should skip all the shopping and just give out fruitcakes for presents. That would teach them!