Black Friday Red Friday Good Friday

At one in the morning the stores are mobbed, the highways are jammed, and the lines are long. Starbucks is open all night. The rush is on. It's "Black Friday". The biggest shopping day of the year. I think it's become bigger than Thanksgiving itself! We might as well make it a national holiday. Shopping frenzy day! Shopping fanatical, hysteria (maybe hysterical) day. Shopping chaos day. Panic buying, impulse buying day. Made house day. Made rush day.

It used to be that stores opened early on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Then to keep up with the Jones', or maybe to keep one step ahead of the Jones', stores started opening earlier than their competition. And earlier, and earlier. Then someone got the bright idea to simply open at midnight on Thursday. It was a huge success. That is, until someone opened at 10:00pm on Thursday - a super-early Black Friday. 

This year, for the first time in its 155 year history, Macy's in NY, will open on Thanksgiving day at 8:00pm. Not to be beaten, Walmart opened at 6:00pm. On Thanksgiving day! Has the family turkey dinner simply become a shopping planning event? I hate to see next year's opening day. Soon the Thanksgiving holiday will be overthrown! By shoppers! And similar to how we stuff ourselves with turkey, shoppers will turn into consumer gluttons! Although I think they have already.

How did this name for the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, come about anyway? It seems to me that Good Friday, the day we observe as Jesus dying on the cross, should be Black Friday, not Good Friday. And Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, should be called Good Friday because of all the good deals. 

O, I know, Good Friday is good because Jesus died to take away our sins, but for me, I think I would prefer to call it Black Friday. Now, the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, most likely got its name because all the businesses are expected to make such a profit that no company will be in the 'red' that day. So, Red Friday would not be a good name for Black Friday, although, Red Friday, symbolizing the sacrificial blood of Christ, may be even a better name than Good Friday. However, if Black Friday was named, as some say, because of the crazy traffic that will clog up the roads and cause havoc on the day after Thanksgiving, then perhaps Black Friday should be called Red Friday after all.

So Black Friday should be called Good Friday or possibly Red Friday, and Good Friday should be called Black Friday or possibly Red Friday unless Black Friday becomes Red Friday first.