A belated Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends!
What is this thing today, Black Friday!
The names says it all to me! A day of dark doings.
We will not be saving money by spending money we do not have. Food and shelter and health care are not on sale, so there isn’t anything of interest out there!
What if they offered a 50% discount on hydro, or heating oil, or natural gas? How about discounted apartment rents, now that would be something worthwhile!
A lovely frigid morning here, with ice particles forming mid-air, sparkling slowly down through the sunbeams. Beautiful. These pictures have not been altered, except to reduce their size to accommodate the web.
 |
 |
 |
Worldly Distractions
Weather
-6°C
Date: 4:00 PM EST Friday 29 November 2013
Condition: Sunny
Pressure: 104.0 kPa
Visibility: 16 km
Temperature: -6.3°C
Dewpoint: -13.1°C
Humidity: 59%
Wind: NNW 11 km/h
Wind Chill: -11
Quote
If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”
George S. Patton
I have never shopped on “Black Friday” and have no idea why it’s called that. Stupid name. Stup$id tradition. WalMart said they made $100 million yesterday. Oh good. That does my heart good. Of that, probably $99,999,995 of that will go to the top 1%. My question to them is, if you hadn’t opened your doors on Thanksgiving Day night (is there no shame anymore), do you really think all those people would have just stopped their shopping and said “oops, couldn’t go then so won’t go at all.” ?? No…they would have bought all that stuff anyway, on a regular shopping day. Jeers to WalMart and all the stores who are forcing their staff/employees to work Holidays when they don’t want to.
(thanks for letting me rant – I despise WalMart as you can see and will never shop there, ever.)
Good rant Bex, have to agree with you!
Bigger is not better. It is only a few greedies at the top that are running the circus; the rest of us are only “punters”. I suspect that, in the long run, the system top-heavy with greed, will come tumbling down.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, the USA tradition was that nothing about Christmas started until the day after Thanksgiving (an excellent tradition, in my opinion, which I remember from my childhood). There were special savings accounts called “Christmas Clubs,” often managed by employers, in which people saved up money all year for their holiday shopping, and the funds weren’t available until the day after Thanksgiving.
Anyway, retailers started offering sales the day after Thanksgiving, probably competing to get the Christmas Club money. Volume sales on that day put retailers “in the black,” meaning that they had a positive accounting balance and a profit for the year. I don’t have a clue who coined the term “Black Friday,” but that’s the origin of the phrase as I understand it.
This is fresh in my mind as we were explaining it to my 17 year old goddaughter at dinner yesterday. She’s still trying to get her head around the idea of a world where Christmas only lasted for a month.
Thanks Wendy! It makes sense. I really miss singing Christmas Carols as we did in class in primary school. We made decorations for the school room in art class, sang carols in music class, and had a Christmas Concert every Christmas where we all sang in a choir. Those are the best memories, not presents, certainly not presents, and never, ever, ever was shopping a part of our lives.
Many people seem to shop now just for entertainment! And not for things that are needed, but just – I don’t know – for a sense of empowerment? Yay, I got the best deal, I am victorious!?