Black Thankgiving Christmas Shopping Begins My Season of Woe

The stores are all flogging "Black Friday" shopping the day after Thanksgiving, and more and more of them are pushing "Black Thursday," trying to get people to put down their turkey drumsticks pronto on Thanksgiving and get shopping, NOW!

Everybody knows I hate, hate, hate, the whole Christmas demands that we shop until we drop. I'm not even sure why I have such a viceral contempt for the constant harping to buy, buy, buy.

Who in their right mind would want to be in this
crowd during the Thanksgiving holiday?

I guess it's because of my disdain for anything that smacks of desperation. The constant ads, the continual push to begin the so called shopping season earlier, the news reports that suggest it's our duty to shop ourselves off our own fiscal cliffs for the supposed good of the economy, really scream "desperation."

We're supposed to be happy about all this, too. The ads are feature the cloying jingle bells, smiles, warm fuzzies, all in the name of dictating that emotions other than glee are hereby banned.

That's another thing that drives me crazy about the Christmas shopping season. I'm generally a happy person, but I resent it when somebody else demands that I be happy. What right does anybody tell me how to feel?

The shopping frenzy is always a turn off, too. Every year, the news is the same. People trample each other dashing through the doors for the "door buster" sales. Door buster here being literal, since they always have to fix the doors people mow down to get at their flat screen TVs.

People fight, ripping the latest hot toys out of each other's hands, because if their kid doesn't get said hot toy, the world would end, supposedly. 

Even if you don't get caught in a riot and a cloud of pepper spray during the Black Thursday/Friday sales, do you really want to burn through three tanks of gas in the traffic jams on the way to the mall? No thanks.

And what about the people who have to work at the stores in all this madness? Especially on Thanksgiving, when they probably want to be with family. Sure, some want to work on Thanksgiving to collect a bit of extra money, but I'm not sure everybody wants to deal with bloated, nauseated and nausous customers. demanding the impossible.

The stores are also all laughing themselves to the bank.  Their Black Thursday and Friday sales have a few items with low, low prices, but all the other items have jacked up price tags. The retailers know people will spend an extra $100 while they think they're saving $5 on a some stupid video game.

Not everyone has my negative attitude toward Black Thursday/Friday, of course. Somebody arrived at a California Best Buy a week before the sale began to save money on flat screen TVs and such.  To me, if you can afford to camp in a Best Buy parking lot for a week and not work, you can afford full price for a flat screen TV.

Don't get me wrong. There's nothing inherently wrong with retailers trying to sell their stuff.  That's what they're supposed to do. Many people like the sales frenzy. It's a game, a hobby, a social experience, a way of life. More power to them. I just want to be left out of it.

 I also like giving Christmas gifts to people I like. There are aspects of shopping that can be kind of fun.  But like Christmas oveall, the demands of the retailer take something that is inherently a good idea, doing something nice for someone, and turning it into an ordeal that they demand we enjoy.

Yes, I know it's illegal to be negative during this season, but I will anyway: I want no part of Black Thursday and Black Friday. Pass the turkey and the gravy, please.