On Friday, November 29th, malls and shopping centers around the country opened their doors before the crack of dawn to welcome in hoards of holiday shoppers. For years, Black Friday has been a tradition for everyone, including non-Americans, to visit their favorite stores and get amazingly low deals in order to get a head start on their holiday shopping. As the name says, Black Friday should always be on a Friday, shouldn’t it? So why are stores starting to have their big opening on the day of Thanksgiving? It all seems very frustrating. The holiday has been on a Friday for several decades so the act to start altering the event is very inconvenient and not many people are fond of the idea of it either.

A junior who wished to not be named stated “I did not like it. It [the early opening] was really messed up; separating families by having them go out shopping on Thanksgiving.”

This event dates back to the 1960s. Black Friday was an event where stores would reduce the prices of their popular items, so people would be able to buy things at a cheap and reasonable amount just in time for Christmas.  The term originated when stores would move from the “red” to the “black” and only hand written accounting records being kept. The red indicated loss of money and the black meant profit. Because the day after Thanksgiving was the most popular day for buying gifts, people referred to the day as “Black Friday”. As time went on, stores reduced the prices of their popular items in order to help more people buy more items. Now, it has been a fun time for people to line up and wait to get first picks at the shockingly low prices that stores have to offer. Although it can be very fun and enjoyable, all of the built up anxiety to get the perfect gift for someone can lead to a lot of tragic endings. There have been many injuries, muggings, and even deaths on the day of Black Friday throughout history, however, in my opinion, instead of letting there be two openings to reduce traffic; they should just add more security to cover the one opening.

“It [Black Friday] is really crazy. When I went, people are pushing each other and shoving just to get new shoes. Lots of people got hurt and trampled. It was crazy.” Sophomore Chiara Gautier said.

In more recent years, many stores and plazas have stopped opening their doors at crazy hours and have started to open at 8pm and 10pm the night before and again on Friday in order to beat the aggressive shoppers. I feel the act of celebrating Black Friday should always be on an actual Friday rather than breaking tradition. As far as security goes, I feel that it is very inconvenient for those who have to go as security for the early opening to have to leave their families and monitor the crowds. And these people have to get called out at several different times during the late night and early morning to stop the same crazy people from getting too rowdy. By opening on the night of Thanksgiving, shop owners are pressuring all of the Friday fans to leave right after their holiday to go wait in line just to spend money. Also, not many people tend to know or care about the earlier 8 pm Thursday opening of stores so when the early comers drift in and snatch all of the good items before most people, it can be very frustrating. The lack of advertising for these kinds of openings is simply outrageous.   If stores wish to keep their high sales and large demand, they have to keep the hours the same. The main reason for many people ,especially younger ones,  to attend Black Friday is for the late night atmosphere and being able to see all of the crazed wonders and low deals that it has to offer. By taking these away and opening stores earlier on “Black Friday” is something that I am not in favor of.

Avid Black Friday shopper, Eileen Acken said “It [Black Friday] has weekend, but mostly because hours have been extended and the event has been really stretched out. Now, everyone gets their shopping done earlier. I mean why wake up at 4am when you can just go at 8pm on Thanksgiving night, for the same door busters? They both have their ups and downs, the earlier ones are nice, because people can make more time to visit stores, but later is also great because it gives the true experience of Black Friday.”