What the Spirit of "Black Friday" Is Really All About

After the parade, the football, the turkey and the tryptophan nap to follow, in rushes the holiday season with all its tree lighting, candle burning and Santa Claus lighting glory.The holiday season?

Oh right, that time of year when good cheer goes around in bundles and people think about giving of themselves to help others.

Well that's one take on the whole affair. The other is slightly less benevolent, if you will.

It's no more evident than on the first day of the "holiday season," aptly named "Black Friday," which spits in the face of everything this time of year is all about.

Many had barely gotten through going around the Thanksgiving table telling everyone who will listen what they were thankful for before thoughts of everything they wanted (and would sleep on the street corner that night in order to get) were dancing in their heads. The culminations of that through process.Black Friday hysteria.

To think, one day after Thanksgiving everyone shows how thankful they are by rushing into the stores like savages in order to reward our greedy selves by taking advantage of the best deals on the latest plasma televisions and the most generously marked down laptops.

Drink in the irony for a moment.

Some decide to not even wait until the Thanksgiving holiday concludes. While most are digging into their dinner late Thursday afternoon, a friend informs me that people are already camping out outside of Best Buy at 5 p.m. I was a little puzzled, but then I thought, well who wouldn't want to take that tryptophan nap in a tent on the sidewalk in 30-degree temperatures? It's not the Hilton, but then again the Hilton doesn't offer plasma televisions at 60 percent off either!

Apparently getting to the Best Buy at 6 p.m. instead of 5 p.m. also means you're 30 people farther back in line. Doesn't seem all that crazy, except that it's 6 p.m. the night BEFORE the store opens for business.

The term "Black Friday" was originally coined by the Philadelphia media to describe the large-scale traffic jams of cars and people that would ensue in stores on the day after Thanksgiving. Commonly held thoughts about Black Friday are that customers rush into the stores to get a head start on the gift-buying season.

However, Black Friday is not the busiest shopping day of the year.(contrary to popular belief). In truth, it has only been the largest one in the past three years. Comparatively, the Saturday before Christmas is usually a larger shopping day for consumers.

However, there is no question Black Friday does claim the title for most hectic and stressful shopping day of the year. So hectic and stressful, in fact, it even results in tragedy in some cases.

And this year's Black Friday didn't disappoint on that front. Early in the day a Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death and a pregnant woman was injured in a chaotic rush just before the opening of the Long Island, N.Y. store. Later on, in Palm Desert, Calif., two men shot each other in a dispute over a product at a local Toys "R" Us. These are just the latest in a laundry lift of horror stories that go along with Black Friday's reputation. That along with the "semi-normal" camping out in the frozen food section overnight and stealing 42" televisions from unattended shopping carts are the culmination of thousands of shoppers who have become frenzied from a night spent dreaming on the deals that await them. It all leads to the red-in-the-eye charge toward marked-down merchandise, no matter the obstacle, and are the legacy of Black Friday.

Sellers would argue it makes sense to target Black Friday for markdowns and customer enticement because many are off from work, which makes the possibility of alluring them a greater possibility. So merchandisers, as some would say just doing their jobs, have driven customers to the feeding frenzy that now describes Black Friday.

The description seems no more appropriate than at the Long Island Wal-Mart where customers broke through the glass doors shortly before 5 a.m. and relentlessly knocked down, trampled and killed the previously-mentioned employee who was attempting to open them.

Even more disturbing were the customers' reactions to store officials when informed the store would close because of the death. Customers were irate and threw tantrums (yes, the same tantrum the 3-year-old in the store throws when he or she can't get that toy.)

I can see a customer now.

"Yes sir officer, I see he's dead, sure, but there are four plasma televisions left on the shelf! He would have wanted me to have one of them!"

As if the insensitivity doesn't drip enough of the statement, maybe we could point out the keyword "me" in the sentence. Because that's what Black Friday is really about: "me." Sure, there is the mother or father looking to get discounted clothes or presents for their children, but so many of the people hawking the discounts these days are people shopping for no one but themselves.

One shopper, Jason Rathburn of Tennessee put it best in an interview with an ABC affiliate saying, "I'm guessing the spirit of giving for Christmas starts tomorrow."

Obviously.

Or maybe it's just human nature kicking in again. Spoiling ourselves to the fullest before giving the slightest thought to another. Once fat and happy off the Black Friday deals, then maybe there will be some goodwill left over to think about giving to someone else? After all, what else is there once everything is checked off the personal wish list?

Somewhere we've lost track.

I couldn't help thinking of a popular Christmas song called
"Christmas Shoes" this weekend as I went through the Black Friday horror stories. It goes like this.

His clothes were worn and old, he was dirty from head to toe/ And when it came his time to pay/ I couldn't believe what I heard him say/ Sir, I want to buy these shoes for my Mama, please/ It's Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size/ Could you hurry, sir, Daddy says there's not much time/ You see she's been sick for quite a while/ And I know these shoes would make her smile/ And I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight/ He counted pennies for what seemed like years/ Then the cashier said, "Son, there's not enough here"/ He searched his pockets frantically/ Then he turned and he looked at me/ He said Mama made Christmas good at our house/ Though most years she just did without/ Tell me sir, what am I going to do,/ Somehow I've got to buy her these Christmas shoes.

Not exactly a Black Friday shopper's style to be shopping on Christmas Eve and paying full price for shoes for someone else, while wearing their own dusty old clothes.

Boy I'm sure glad that nowadays we have this whole "holiday season" thing figured out.Wait. What?