Black Friday Convert

First of all, all I knew was that it was a day after Thanksgiving. I knew that it was a day when all that people would think of is to shop. But I never thought that it was really huge. Actually, I felt that it was quite a chore to do it, because it was a day after one of the biggest celebrations of the year. Other than stuffing yourself with turkey, delicious ham, pumpkin pie and everything that was on the table, it was a day to be with family and friends. So, I'd like to think that, pretty much, Thanksgiving is a good day, but it is tiring. Therefore the following day should be a day of rest.

Secondly, the term Black Friday was quite confusing for me. Being raised a Catholic, I was quite aware of the Good Friday and Black Saturday. But Black Friday?

So now I have to look at wikipedia to find the origin of the name for a day that was supposed to be a huge shopping day. I gathered that the term Black Friday came about because of the tremendous number of people going to the stores and malls, things become quite chaotic and extremely stressful. Traffic becomes terrible, you cannot find a parking space, escalators are filled with people going up and down, lines to the cashiers seem endless and the stores are just too crowded with bodies. Busy bodies, at that, who wish to grab the best bargain deals of the day.

Actually, I had a different shopping scheme for several years. My Christmas shopping started in September. When the stores were not crowded. When I could take my sweet time choosing the right gifts for the right people. When I did not feel rushed by the thought that there would be a mile-long queue of people wanting to pay for their stuff.

By October I was happily done and avoided stores, lest I would feel upset in discovering that what I bought earlier was being sold for half the price. But I was fine with it. There was less pressure.

Until last year when a girlfriend invited me to tag along. She picked me up at 5:00 a.m sharp. We moved from one mall to another, trooped from isle to isle, and got mostly what we wanted. By 11:30 in the morning, we were done. When I got home I knew I had a blast.

I guess we felt that we short-changed ourselves by doing just a 6-hour spree. So this year, we joined the crowd until 2:30 in the afternoon. Well, we were smart not to go too far after around 9am because we knew we were going to be stuck in traffic. Some say, "I choose my battles". In our case, we chose where to do the battle. Of shopping, that is. We went to store after store but chose the ones which were not too distant from each other. When we saw the long line at the cashier and felt that we did not really want anything from that store, we simply left and chose the lesser crowded ones.

By 2:30 my energy was going down. I felt that I needed to raise my legs and give my feet a nice rub. My girlfriend was still into in and I felt that she wanted to keep going. Maybe she sensed that I was not in for more Black Friday-ing, plus she could not really decide what to give the teenage boys that she wanted to buy gifts for.

Overall, that day was not really stressful for me. I felt that the term Black Friday seems to depict something horrendous, confusing and greatly disorganized. It was just tiring, not to mention that my wallet also felt quite stressed.

I don't know if shopping is really a girl thing (many men lined up the night before to get the laptops and digital camera, mind you) because they say the men lack shopping genes. But based on what I have been seeing, I guess it's really ladies who have the liking for Black Friday and other sale days.

But whether it's for ladies and men alike, I'd like to think that Black Friday should not really called as such. It is a fun day, especially for converts like me who have given up the quiet mall days and the months-before-Christmas shopping experience. I'd suggest that this day be given a new name. Glorious Friday perhaps?