How many of you are going to start your Christmas shopping Thursday (Thanksgiving Day)?
Shop till you drop?
You can count me out. Never shopped on Thanksgiving. Only been to a mall once on a Black Friday. Lived in Omaha at the time and my dear MIL, from a small town( pop. 400), wanted to see what all the hoopla was about. She lasted less than 1/2 an hour.
I also worked at a discount retail store when we were first married. The day after Christmas was worse than Black Friday. All the sales plus all the returns.
Most ofmy shopping is done online now. Easier to ship since both kids live out of town now. Although we will be blessed to have our daughter home for Christmas and our son home for New Years's this year.
My very first job was in a pawn shop and you would be amazed at how many people did their Christmas shopping there. Things were going strong in Youngstown economically, and there were all sorts of stores downtown, yet Christmas was the busiest time of the year for us so far as sales were concerned. The one drawback was the 12 hour days because there were only four of us.
I also do my shopping online.....early. EBay can beat the local store prices just about any day of
the year - and by ordering early I never have problems with items being in stock.
I will not shop on Thanksgiving Day.
A friend who works in retail has to work on Thanksgiving Day and will not be able to have dinner with his wife and children.
Corporate greed, coupled with the advertising agencies greed have brainwashed people into this madness of Black Monday, and most of us are fools enough to buy into it. We're foolish fish with a big hook in our collective mouths as the corporations drag us in and empty our bank accounts. That is one of the reasons why Xmas has become the accepted alternative to Christmas.
I can recall the time when the week before Christmas, Strauss would devote one of their main window displays to a beautiful manger scene, and there was no thought of stores staying open on Thanksgiving Day, and yet they all prospered.
I refuse to think of Christmas shopping until after thanksgiving...
I do not put out any Christmas decorations at home until after Thanksgiving...
Black Friday is normally spent putting away the fall and Thanksgiving decorations and checking the strands of Christmas lights. If time allows putting up the tree......
But I've got all weekend for that...