Black fridayEveryone has heard about holidays like Christmas, New Year's Eve, Easter and Independence Day and so on. But not everyone (at least in Sweden) has heard about Black Friday.

Black friday is the day after Thanksgiving day (the fourth Thursday of November). Since at least the 1930s, it has been regarded as the beginning of the Christmas season in the US. Thanksgiving is known as a peaceful and quite holiday, when families meets up and have a great time together, with loads of food and laughters. You can say that it's the peace before the war breaks out, because on the Friday its shopping time for millions of people all over America and also the rest of the world.

The term “black Friday” was made in 1960s to mark the kickoff of the Christmas season. Black referes to stores moving from the “red” to the “black”, back when accounting records were kept by hand, and red ink indicated a loss, and black a profit. Ever since the start of the modern Macy’s thanksgivingDay P parade in 1924, the Friday after thanksgiving has been known as the unofficial start to the massive holiday shopping season.

So why did it become so popular? Because as retailers began to understand that they could attract big crowds by discounting prices, Black Friday became the number one day to shop, even better than those last minute Christmas sale. Shop owners stars to put up ads about there biggest deals allready before thanksgiving, so they will have as many customers as possible. Black Friday is a long day, many shops are opening alredy at 5am and at that time big hordes of people are pushing against eachothers to get in first. Some people are so horny for great deals so they get very aggressive in the hunt for the item they want. Six persons has died since 2006 because of the Black Friday shopping. This has come to result in much higher security levels all over the shops that attend in the biggest shopping weekend of the year. The most shopped for items are electronics and popular toys, as these may be the most drastically discounted. However, prices are slashed on everything from home furnishing to apparel.

425 billion Swedish crowns are reacted every year on Black Friday. Imagine if we instead put that money on the poor people who is suffering all over the world, I think the world would be a better place if we started thinking of others than just ourselfs in first place.