Thanksgiving! And Black Friday

     

Gobble! It's technically Black Friday, but I am doing a Thanksgiving-themed part of this post anyway. 

     I am thankful that I have the opportunity to have this blog.

     Enough mushiness.

     Today, Black Friday, I will have to go clothes shopping. Yay. *voice drips with sarcasm* Seriously, though, I need it. My closet is full of stuff I don't fit into anymore.

     I'm now out of ideas, so how about a history lesson. YAY!

     According to History.com, the most common story is that every year, shops go "into the black" on Black Friday. Stores use the color red to record losses, and black to record profit. Apparently, on the day after Thanksgiving, shoppers spent so much on discounted items that stores would get to record the day's earnings in black, instead of the usual red. 

     However, this story is false. 

     The true story goes like this: in the '50s, in Philadelphia, police used the term "Black Friday" to refer to the disorder that occurred the day after Thanksgiving. On the day after, a large  Army-Navy football game took place so tourists would flood in the day before (Friday). In this chaos, shoplifters would make off with goods from stores, so police had their work cut out for them. In the 1980s, retail stores removed the negative connotation from the term "Black Friday" and coined it as a sales bonanza. Eventually, discounts extended through the weekend and "Cyber Monday" and "Small Business Saturday" became other retail holidays.

     Fun Fact: Black Friday is not the biggest shopping day of the year; that honor goes to the Saturday before Christmas. 

Have a wonderful weekend and I'll see you next Friday!