Thanksgiving has become a cultural landmark in this country, one of the few truly American holidays. Subsequently, we spend this day in appreciation of everything that makes us American: football, obesity, and wondering why contact with your family can’t be relegated to the Christmas cards which are surely going to flood your mailbox during the next month. In recent years, another tradition has come to play a part in our national celebration: Black Friday. Whether you see it as a corporate created, profit driven celebration of everything wrong with modern America, or as the perfect time to get that new computer you’ve been wanting for $14, the truth is that Black Friday has become an American hallmark, and something that’s here to stay.
We can’t simply demonize it or call it frivolity, nor chastise it for interfering with one’s turkey dinner, because to some, it’s become just as much of a holiday and family event than sitting around trying to eat your grandmother’s fruit cake as Aaron Rodgers throws another touchdown pass. How can we say that those who choose to celebrate Black Friday are wrong simply because they choose to celebrate their four day weekend in a way that hasn’t socially become accepted yet?
In truth, are the other holidays we celebrate as a nation any less peculiar? Easter is a day celebrating what most sci-fi fans today would call a zombie apocalypse, and a rabbit laying multi-color eggs saying, “Hey kids, come eat this.” Halloween is a day where people take on dual identities, and ask strangers for candy. And last, but by far, not the least, Christmas, the most sacred American holiday, celebrates greedy children, deforestation, and feeding into a kind old man’s obesity.
However, ignoring the irrationality of their own accepted holidays, people are quick to refute Black Friday as a corporate gimmick. Needless to say, I see it differently. I see a father and son sitting in front of Best Buy waiting for the doors to open for 12 hours and I wonder about all the stories that that kid was told and how much closer his father now feels to him. I see a family of four getting up at 5 a.m. yelling at each other about who gets to use the bathroom first, but by 6 a.m. at the mall, Starbucks in hand, laughing with each other. I try to think back to the times that my family and I had those bonding moments, and I can tell you right now that they never happened over Thanksgiving, or any other “normal” holiday. They happened when were doing something completely and undoubtedly irrational with each other, like going to Target before the sun came out to get a Panini press for $3.99. And in the end isn’t that what the holidays are suppose to be about, growing closer with your family?
Black Friday has accrued a stigma that it’s people spending money they don’t have for things they don’t need. And in a way that’s right. That’s not to say that it’s a waste of money though. No more than spending a grand on Disney Land tickets, or a Broadway play, or a baseball game.
Black Friday is a bonding event like any other, and to say differently is to be blinded by your own traditional views and pomposity. Although I no longer live with my parents, and my childhood is but pictures in a scrapbook, I’ll always have those memories of groggy Friday mornings with a bad turkey hangover, sipping on coffee with the ones I love most.