Black Friday is noted as the first day of traditional Christmas shopping of the season. Usually all stores open at twelve a.m. starting the day after Thanksgiving, but as years have passed, this intense day of trying to catch the hottest deals have begun as early as five p.m. on Thanksgiving night. People anticipate this night of shopping and go to extremes of giving up their Thanksgiving celebrations to wait in lines to be the first ones inside the stores.
Most people who are out shopping are done before it is even Friday. Black Friday, now evolving into Black Thursday, is causing employees to have to leave their families early or not be able to come home for the Thanksgiving holiday at all. College students who live away from home and work at any store that is open to Black Thursday shoppers don’t have the opportunity to be home with their families on Thanksgiving either. The shopping now being open on Thursday defeats the day after Thanksgiving shopping experience, and it is not fair to workers who wish to be with their families.
Big stores like Walmart, Best Buy, Target, Kohl’s, Macy’s, JC Penney, and most stores in the mall opened at five and six p.m. All of these stores being open means that all the employees had to be working on a day that is supposed to full of enjoying family, food, and relaxation. If Black Friday was still on its original time of starting at 12 a.m., it would give workers the opportunity to enjoy their Thanksgiving holidays and open the window of time for them to spend with their families and enjoy the importance of this special holiday.
I feel that Black Friday shopping is slowly taking over and camouflaging Thanksgiving when it is supposed to be an addition to Thanksgiving and the start to the Christmas season. With so many customers out and about, fast food restaurants and food court employees are also opening more and more every Black Thursday night. Sonic, Starbucks, McDonalds, Taco Bell, and restaurants in the mall had employees working as if it was a normal day. If you were to walk into the mall or drive down a main road, you would never suspect it was a national holiday. I hate it for the people who couldn’t enjoy their Thanksgiving holiday, and wish Black Friday could go back to being Black Friday, not Black Thursday.