The Friday after Thanksgiving is called "Black Friday" for a reason: It marks the start (and for some, the finishing of) Christmas Shopping and the best deals anyone can get that they otherwise would not during the other 364 (or in this case, 365) days of the year. It is basically a clearance sale without really clearing out old items for something new.
If anyone has not figured out from several stores, they are opening at 8 PM Thanksgiving Day - I repeat, several major stores like Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Sears, Target and Toys R' Us among others are opening/starting their sales as early as 8 PM on THANKSGIVING DAY.
That is an eye-popper and raises several questions right off the bat like:
- When are employees going to enjoy Thanksgiving with their families?
- Why are you making shoppers not to enjoy Thanksgiving with their families to come out to these sales?
- Who's idea was it to start it at that time?
- Why isn't Black Friday actually starting on Friday?
Thanksgiving is a holiday that can be traced back to 1621 at Plymouth - or present day Massachusetts. It was celebrated after a good harvest that year and had a feast (which is basically what it is today). Today in most areas, it is celebrated on the basis of a family coming together in one place, holding a huge dinner and (for me anyways) watching the Dallas Cowboys and the Detroit Lions play their football games. Once upon a time, Lee Corso was calling the Egg Bowl on Thanksgiving Night.
While many fans from both sides wish for the game to be put back on Thursday on Thanksgiving before ESPN decided not to continue doing the game on that day (they stopped after Eli Manning's Senior Year). The fact of the matter is at 8 PM, families are eating their Thanksgiving Dinner - it is a complete disgrace to the holiday to start their "special sales" on the actual holiday and not on the actual day that the term "Black Friday" was coined from. What advantage is being gained out of it? Why does it have to be SO early and on the day where I'm talking to my cousins that I have not seen since the summer? Why do I have to get out the house as early as 5 PM, skip Thanksgiving dinner celebrating one of the Untied States most cherished holidays just so I can stand in line at a store, buy an $88 TV or a $149 Computer? What happened to doing it at 4 AM?
I have not celebrated a Thanksgiving dinner myself for the last 3 years - largely due to the fact that a High School Football game was occurring the following night that I was going to be at and help out - but I am doing Thanksgiving this year.
I am not going to spend a Thanksgiving Dinner in line at a store just to get a couple of items at the price of what one of the items should cost. Thanksgiving should be eating dinner with your relatives thankful for what you have and what you got - and have a little fun playing some games and even watching some Football which is normally played during the day.
This is usually the point where I start venting but I'm going to make this short and sweet and save the venting for another occasion when I will actually use it.
CEO's should be ashamed from doing what they have done, I've received and e-mail from change.org (a petition site) from an employee at Target that she hardly ever has a day off and cannot be off for Thanksgiving because "everybody must be at work for 'Black Friday' ". She has gotten very good reviews and has a chance to be successful down the road, but she is forced to not have any time alone with her family even for a holiday like Thanksgiving - a holiday she says is the only time she can visit with her family.
This is just about as unfair as it gets and it is begging for a fight that need not to happen. This is choosing values over a career - something that should not EVER go to a choice between.
If anything, don't call it a "Black Friday" sale if the sale is not going to be done within the entire day of Friday; give it a different name, like "Thanksgiving Sale". These people like the Target employee should be given her deserved day off on a Untied States holiday and be with their families. This is one of the very few times in the year where families can come together and spend some time with each other - in some cases this is the ONLY time where they can spend time with their families.
I have just gotten an e-mail today - and you might have seen this person on the "Today Show" that Target has decided to open one hour later at 9 PM because of her petition that garnered 370,000 signatures. It is not much and a far cry to where all stores should be but she gets at least one hour to eat her Thanksgiving Dinner with her family.
I don't know if this rant is going to do any good or not, but I'm sure I'm not the only one fuming that another unnecessary problem has come up in the number of problems the Untied States is facing - and one that can be fixed quite easily.