Black Friday shopping interferes with spirit of Thanksgiving

Shoppers line up at Target to get Black Friday deals, but is it worth it? Photo from Creative Commons

Thanksgiving, as one can tell from the name, is a day dedicated to giving thanks for the things in your life. It’s about appreciating the people in your life, realizing the good things that you have, and taking the time to make sure that you acknowledge those. Black Friday, however, is nearly the exact opposite.

Black Friday is going out to obtain more material belongings, getting what you want, sometimes even going so far as to fight with someone over these things. People start lining up at stores in the middle of the night to be the first to get a good deal or save money, and they spend the entire day spending on things that they want but don’t need.

And it’s only been getting worse. Many stores, such as JCPenney’s, Macy’s, and Sears extended their Black Friday shopping hours to start as early as 6 p.m. on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. Not only is Black Friday contradictory to the spirit of Thanksgiving, but now it’s actually stealing time away from the holiday itself.

Now don’t get me wrong, I can understand wanting to get a good deal on that laptop you’ve had your eye on and going out to get a good deal on it on Friday. But the extent to which some people take their Black Friday shopping is too far; they focus more on their excitement about buying things on Black Friday than they do on actually appreciating what they have on Thanksgiving, and this is a fundamental issue that needs to change.

Black Friday shopping hours should definitely not start any earlier than midnight on Friday morning, as any earlier interferes with Thanksgiving day and takes even more away from the holiday. However, this is ultimately a societal problem that stores can not necessarily fix. As a whole, we need to teach our society to stop caring so much about wants, and to be thankful for what they already have.