Isn't Black Friday enough?

To me, Black Friday has never meant much more than a pain in the rear when I had to work that day and cover the hordes who found it necessary to risk life and limb and start shopping in the wee hours of the day after Thanksgiving.

I haven't had to do that in several years and so it has come to mean nothing, except an occasion to laugh at my beautiful bride and her daughter as they prepare to leave at 4 a.m. and I roll over and go back to sleep.

So what is going on now? The big retailers aren't satisfied with the nutso atmosphere of Black Friday and thus want to relegate it to the day after Black Thursday?

But wait, that would mean Black Thursday is actually Thanksgiving Day, right? Is nothing sacrosanct anymore?

It would be one thing if one or two retailers were doing it but nooooo ... they all seem to be jumping on the bandwagon. Each day another one announces it also will open on Thanksgiving evening.

I have long lamented that Christmas advertising and such starts way too early and it seems to get earlier every year. At some places Christmas decorations are up right alongside Halloween costumes. Already it seemed like Thanksgiving was being pushed to a far back burner.

This new trend, to me, is disappointing. I know retailers are under a tremendous amount of pressure to compete with Internet shopping and what the big boys probably see as the incursion of Small Business Saturday upon the biggest shopping weekend of the year. I don't blame them for seeing the need to keep up with this trend in order to compete so I am not singling anybody out.

But really, will a matter of a few hours make that big of a difference? Will opening at 7 p.m. Thanksgiving make it any more likely a person will shop for Christmas than they would at 10 a.m. the next day?

Christmas shopping is Christmas shopping, right? I mean, if you are intent on buying gifts to be opened on Dec. 25 or thereabouts, you are going to do so whether it's Nov. 22, 23 or Dec. 22 or 23, right?

Ok, I admit I am one of those procrastinators who just doesn't get a thrill out of being done with it early. There is something exciting about the last-minute hunt for the right gift. (Yeah, I wouldn't believe me, either. I don't really put it off for the thrill of the hunt. I just procrastinate.)

I just don't want us to become more of a consumer-conscious nation than we already are if it means forgetting what is important to our souls, such as giving thanks for all that we have and for the blessing of Christ's birth. That's all.

In the meantime, I will continue to sleep in on Black Friday and I will spend Thanksgiving evening relaxing with my wife, my mom and any other family who want to drop by. We'll be home.

Paul Gordon is editor of The Peorian. He can be reached at 692-7880 or editor@thepeorian.com

About the Author

Paul Gordon is the editor of The Peorian after spending 29 years of indentured servitude at the Peoria Journal Star. He’s an award-winning writer, raconteur and song-and-dance man. He also went to a high school whose team name is the Alices (that’s Vincennes Lincoln High School in Indiana; you can look it up).