by Sean Begin
The first time I went out Black Friday shopping was a rite of passage. For years I had watched my mother and her friend prepare and plan the best way to attack the early morning hours after Thanksgiving.
My mom’s friend would come over our house late on Thanksgiving, once all the in-laws and family members had finally left, as were heating up Thanksgiving thirds after our post-meal nap. They would sit at the kitchen table and map out who would go where and when, in an effort to get everything both wanted as quickly as possible.
I remember watching my older sister get the chance to go. And three years later it was my turn. Standing in line in front of a Sear’s at 4 a.m that year, surrounded by people just as crazy as us, was a fun experience. I was a lot smaller at that age, obviously, and wound up weaving in-between the legs of people, sent on a mission by my mother to find a power tool for my dad.
So as Thanksgiving approaches and another Black Friday looms, I find myself reflecting on how much its changed. Black Friday has become Black Thanksgiving Night. Stores used to open at four or five in the morning, only a few hours earlier than normal.
Now, stores are beginning Black Friday deals at 8 p.m the night of Thanksgiving. It’s a nice little metaphor for the obsession America has developed with Christmas and the need to buy as much stuff as possible, as cheap as possible.
Black Friday has been around for decades but it wasn’t until 2003 that it took over as America’s busiest shopping day. In 2011, American’s spent $11.4 billion on Black Friday alone and $52.4 billion over that weekend.
Thanks to large numbers of online shoppers, the total amount spent saw it’s first decrease in 2013 after having gone up every year since 2006. And it was in that year that the website “Black Friday Death Count” begins tracking deaths and injuries on Black Friday. To date: 10 deaths and 90 injuries, with more than half coming from police pepper spray.
The Black Friday I remember, the one of early Dunkin Donuts runs and friendly banter with other people waiting in cold lines at 5 a.m has since been replaced by death and anger just hours after families are supposed to be coming together to give thanks.
I haven’t been out on Black Friday in several years. It’s lost the luster it once had back when I was a young kid. But it won’t change the fact that millions of Americans will be descending on Wal-Mart and Target and Best Buy and dozens of other retailers to buy gifts for loved ones or themselves.
What’s clear to me now is that this country’s obsession with materialism and Christmas has evolved onto a grotesque representation of what the season stands for. The term “spirit of Christmas” is trite and cliché but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s been lost in our quest and hunger for things rather than people.