tradition (black friday)

November 25, 2011
I'm two hours shy of being awake for 24 hours, so proceed with caution: I'm tired, I can't tell if food will make me feel better or worse, and I'm all kinds of delirious.

My family doesn't have a lot of traditions. By the time I was 18, I had already lived in 18 different homes. Everything is always changing and a little uncertain. (For a while, the closest thing we had to a tradition was getting a French silk pie from a local restaurant-- and then they closed.)

A few years ago, Black Friday became a tradition. My sisters and I would wake up before dawn, shop like there was no tomorrow, and end the morning with a nice breakfast around 10am. Sure it was a little crazy, but it was something crazy that we always did together. A sister thing.

In the past few years, the sales have been getting earlier and earlier, until today, when stores decided to open at midnight. So us sisters, wanting to keep the tradition alive, went.

And it was awful.

I hated that employees had to leave their Thanksgiving dinners to get ready for work. I hated that there were probably twice as many people, because they were more willing to stay up a few hours than get up early. I hated that I was part of a community that was so easily manipulated by mass marketing strategies.

And worst of all, I hated that my sisters and I decided that this was probably our last hurrah. After spending an entire day cooking and then dedicating the evening to our family, the last thing we want to do get in a line of 500+ that wraps around the back of Target.

Black Friday has always been a day for crazies, but now I feel like it's infringed upon traditions and family time. Things that are actually important. So unless Target returns to its original 5am opening time, an era has ended today.

(I'll just keep my new immersion blender as a memento.)

Good night.

10 comments:

  1. Maybe it should be renamed to "Black Friday for the crazies"....unbelievable - few years back when the economy was bad you could still find males waiting outside of Best Buy for a huge azz tv!. Now Black Friday is Black Thursday... pretty sad...

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  2. We don't have Black Friday here but we do have crazy boxing day sales and I feel the same way - why would you spend it shopping when you could be spending it with your family and midnight just sounds even crazier to me. One of my friends used to work in retail and she hated boxing day with a passion because of it which I thought was really sad.

    You'll find new and better traditions with your sisters I'm sure :) My sisters getting married in May and I know thats going to change a lot of things but I'm looking forward to starting new things with them too.

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  3. ugh, Black Friday really scares me. I agree that it should never infringe on family time!

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  4. I'm sorry that it comes to this for you, Celeste. No chance you'll just wake up early on Friday anyway and go shopping with less people around? You could still have the fun of the day without having to deal with the crowds or your conscience. You probably wouldn't even have to buy anything, just walk around with your family and have a day out.

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  5. dang...that's too bad. canada has its own little version of black friday...haha. 10 percent off is NOT a black friday sale, canada. nice try though.

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  6. I don't have too much experience with Black Friday since I'm from Canada too, but it was interesting to hear your thoughts on it. It makes me sad to think of all those people leaving their family dinners too! :(

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  7. yep. my thoughts exactly. I watched one of the Best Buy employees get chewed out by their superiors because he was advertising tablets that we no longer had. I also watched as the microsoft employee guy hover around us as I asked if ipads can cary microsoft word. It was really frustrating and tiring. But I now have a cute little point and shoot camera and Victor got that laptop he needed for school. So, if this is the last Black Friday of my life, I am quite pleased.

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  8. I agree with you. I didn't even go shopping because it wasn't even worth making the lines. where I live at there were people making lines two days prior to Black Friday. It was horrible!

    Thanks for sharing <3

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  9. you should have an all day baking day with your sisters on black friday!

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  10. We don't have Black Friday here. By the sound of it I wouldn't enjoy it very much anyway!

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