Hold on to your love for me because I’m going to sound a bit conceited and possibly rude, but to me, the term “Thanksgiving” is just an excuse to take a break from reality. You don’t have to say it out loud, but you agree with me, don’t you? Have you ever craved a break from a reality to just sit back and treat yourself? Breaks from reality are the only reason I haven’t dropped out of school. This is in no way me being lazy–it’s just a healthy balance of work and enjoying life. It’s a scientific fact that four days off from reality or routine can completely alleviate wrinkle-causing tension and can cure insomnia by letting our brains relax. I completely just made that up, but when my doctor was explaining my panic to me during finals, she stated that my “brain cannot differentiate from cramming for finals and getting chased by a bear; both situations cause the same panic reaction (for instance, panic attacks).” I thought she’d solved Einstein’s life’s work, but I’ll let you be the judge.
So before I let my brain think that I am being chased by a bear during the three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas break, I let it go on vacation to a “happy place.” “Happy Place” definition: let your mind do everything it loves to do for four days straight. My happy place is the beach in the Bahamas with a trashy book and tan lines. Since I can’t afford to go to the Bahamas, I think back to what my doctor said about how your brain can’t differentiate its reaction between one stressful event and another. So to trick my brain into thinking I’m on a warm beach and not in the mountains of New Hampshire, I find ways that make me personally chill out. That would be really strong coffee and shopping.
Today I’d like to reflect on the holiday break we had a week or two ago. Black Friday break is the best time of the year for shopping. Especially for broke college students, and especially if, like me, you use shopping as a coping mechanism. Since I was around 14, I’d bribe my brother and his friends to chauffeur me to midnight shop. Then, I’d anxiously sift through my morning deals until someone woke up that wanted to go to the mall. One time, two of my guy friends had to forcibly carry me out of a store because I refused to leave a line in order to get a free $100 value VIP bag. I am very aware that this is in no way healthy – and now that I think about it, I am questioning whether my doctor really was saying my brain can’t differentiate between being chased by a bear or being up for 24 hours straight. Maybe I should I ask her the next time I go in.
Anyway, half of my love for Black Friday is just that – the excitement of staying up and being awake at 2 a.m. with Starbucks in my hand and my dad’s credit card number in my brain. Just kidding, Steve – I save most of my summer tip money in simple anticipation to spend it all on this one day.
But as the years have gone by, that thrill of anticipation has been stolen from my stash of tricks. I no longer have the luxury of excusably carb-o-loading on Thanksgiving day to have enough energy to burn through a whole 24 hours of shopping and multiple coffees. A whole 24 hours of tricking my brain into thinking I am on a tropical island.
The definition of “Black Friday” has become very cloudy. At first, it was one store opening a few hours before midnight on Thursday. Now I totally understand this time shift. My whole life, I have never been a good sleeper, so I am used to and very much enjoy a reason to be up at 2-3 a.m. with people around me. But I completely understand that people like their sleep, and appreciate being able to shop at 9 p.m. and go to bed by 11 p.m. I don’t. Being a bad sleeper, I fall asleep at about the same pace as it took for us to evolve from apes to humans. So by all means, open at 9 p.m. – I will be eating pie and arriving around 12.
This year, stores opened at 6 p.m. on Thursday. SIX PM on Thanksgiving day. Most Importantly, I’ve joked enough, Thanksgiving is a day that should be spent really being grateful for what we have in our lives. I spend most of the time complaining and talking about how much I hate school and never once do I consider the fact that I can go to school, that I have a family that helps me afford the cost of it, and that I have access to drinkable water. I get stressed and annoyed at how much stuff I have all over my room, but I HAVE STUFF ALL OVER MY ROOM. Thanksgiving should be spent with loved ones who support and love us. Yes, those loved ones may drive us crazy, and there may be that one who always just criticizes you – that’s what the wine is for. Black Friday and Thanksgiving have been combined to become Grey Week. The couponer’s seven-day dream, but the spontaneous idealist’s nightmare. We have entered into the era of Grey Week.
Thanksgiving is a serious holiday. I don’t know much about the history, but it’s a big deal that we got the Native Americans to hang out with us or there could have been a lot more strife for the pilgrims to settle down. So why are stores trying to convince people to leave their families at 6 pm in order to buy a Fit Bit at Target for half off? I didn’t eat that much…
The whole idea of the rush of Black Friday is that it’s a rush! You burn, you sweat, and maybe it makes you reflect on the days you were at your fittest and consider trying to get back in shape. But this year – to add to America’s lack of physical exertion – the stores decided to ‘expand’ the number of days that their sales ran from. Amazon.com had sales beginning the entire week before Thanksgiving. Let’s also not forget that Amazon is an online store – online stores have sales on Cyber Monday; if you were phishing around for good Cyber Monday deals, you as well were disappointed that Amazon had no abnormal sales and really no stores had any noteworthy online sales this past Monday. I must backtrack to say that Black Friday did have terrific sales, and most stores were offering the same sales on Friday in stores and online. This year, I saved at least $300 and didn’t even do my usual trip to Walmart to buy all my daily products for the year on sale, so there is no doubt that this is still the best time of the year to shop and save money. Yet the excitement of that 24-hour span of time to shop has been completely lost. That one day a year for which wide-eyed pre-teens anticipatedly saved all their piggy bank money ceases to exist. There’s no reason to stay up past curfew. Being told there is one week of sales rather than one day of sales is equivalent to your professor telling you your final exam includes all material learned in the semester rather than only material from lectures after midterms – negative enjoyment. Now I feel less like that little kid missing curfew and more like a grown-up trying to coupon.
Black Friday has become Grey Week. And unless that 24-hour time span comes back, it’s probably the same price and worth buying a plane ticket.
So to any RSVP for Grey Week next November, sorry I cannot attend – I’ll be on a beach with no internet.
For God’s sake, JC Penny extended their Cyber Monday Coupons all the way through Wednesday.