What is Black Friday?

Now that Thanksgiving is over and the food comas are starting to wear off, it’s time to start thinking about the next holiday that is upon us–Christmas. And with Christmas comes shopping.

Black Friday is the shopping day to end all shopping days. As many shopping centers and stores open up at midnight, finding the best deals before they are all gone can sometimes become a full-contact sport.

Although the Friday after Thanksgiving has been the official start of the Christmas shopping season for most retailers since the 1930’s, according to a Chicago Tribune article, the American Dialect Society traces the term “Black Friday” to a 1966 ad in the American Philatelist in which a merchant said the name originated with the Philadelphia Police Department. The PPD apparently named the Friday after Thanksgiving “Black Friday” because it usually “brings massive traffic jams and over-crowded sidewalks as the downtown stores are mobbed from opening to closing.”

It’s not just in Philadelphia that stores and streets are mobbed on Black Friday though. According to the website www.TodayIFoundOut.com, in 2010, 212 million shoppers spent $39 billion on Black Friday.

Will you be braving the crowds to do some Black Friday bargain hunting? If so, take our poll and tell us where you prefer to shop?