I started hearing this version of the story in the late '90s or early '00s, about the time the name Black Friday started being used extensively in advertising and media coverage of the day. But the term was used among retail employees earlier than that; my mother, who worked in a department store in the '80s, certainly used the term. The explanation she and her colleagues gave was that it was, for retail workers, the “blackest” day of the year. While it wasn’t the busiest day of the year - that honor usually went to either December 23rd or the Saturday before Christmas - it had the most pressing crowds at the beginning of the day, and people were, in their opinion, less patient and ruder than closer to Christmas, when many had a certain gallows humor. Wikipedia’s article on the subject quotes a Philadelphia newspaper article from 1966 that offers another explanation, as a way for the police department to describe the chaos in center city. In any event the “retailers go into the black” explanation seems to be a recent development. It sounds nicer for the executives and newspaper reporters to quote.
To answer the original question, around here there is no equivalent of Black Friday. Individual shopping malls or store chains may decide to have some sort of sales event in late November or so, particularly in years like this when it’s expected to be a lean Christmas, but there is no single date that they all do so. Mostly it’s the January sales that are the big event. If there is anything that “kicks off the Christmas shopping season”, it’s usually a tree-lighting ceremony, often held on the Saturday before the first Sunday of Advent. Most years that coincidentally means the day after Black Friday. But it isn’t associated with any particular sales event, it’s just a way to draw people downtown and get a little free publicity.
Over here in Germany, there’s not really a fixed start, either, though it seems in recent years that things pretty much get going once all the unsold chocolate Easter bunnies have been recast into chocolate Santas.
We have a day in Ireland (forget when it is), when all the culchies some up to the “big shmoke”,to do their Christmas shopping.
It’s died a little in recent years, because they have bigger shops in the towns now.
The one and only time I’ve been to England was in early November. At that time, Harrod’s was already in full Christmas mode and Christmas shopping everywhere seemed to be in full bloom.
So, in the U.K., obviously nobody is waiting on an American holiday to start selling OR shopping.
And apart from shopping, the sense I got was that, while hardly anybody there is devoutly religious any more, the secular trappings of Christmas were even more omnipresent that in the USA.
The fact that America, with it’s varying climates, decided to pin the first day of summer as occurring on the summer equinox, instead of on the warmest time of the year. In other words, we standardized the day; many other countries didn’t. And some people feel the need to argue which method is more correct.
Wow. I’ve never heard of such a thing. But even then, the summer solstice is just the first day of summer and it lasts through all of the summer months until the autumn equinox. It boggles my mind that the designation of the first day of summer would be worth an argument to anybody.
I disagree about the standardization in the U.S. The only place you ever see "First Day of Summer"mentioned is in calendars and on weathercasts. No one gets a day off. No celebrations are held. It’s just a infrequently-cited astronomical oddity, really.
Caveat: I grew up in SE Louisiana, where the “hot season” runs from St. Patrick’s Day through Halloween. So maybe somewhere in the U.S. where the seasons are more pronounced there is some kind of municipal celebration for the summer solstice. Never seen or heard of it myself.
Despite what Cecil says, it’s a de facto standard for us schlubs. It makes it easy for all of us to agree whether it’s officially “summer” or not. In real fact, though, no one really cares. We don’t wait until “summer” to put our boats into the water or take the convertible out of the garage, any more than these things get put back into storage just because autumn begins.
In Iceland it usually starts late October in a kind of cascade effect after the first pioneers try putting up christmas decorations and christmas specials (there are always editorials about this in the papers, decrying the horribly early start by some). Come early november everyone has caught up.
This year is a bit different, since we’re living on ground up newspapers and lint and burning our currency to keep warm.
Hmmm.
I spent the better part of a year in Chicago, as an exchange student, back in '85. I don’t know what normal spring temperature is in Chicago but in May, it was in the 80’s and the new busses had faulty ac. The CTA promised to have the problem fixed “by the first day of summer”. Wow. Such a relief. We only have to wait six weeks for proper ac on public transportation.
This brings up another question: Why do you Americans have to declare official Summer, Christmas shopping season or whatever? Why is it important with these sharp demarkation lines? This is a serious question, since I’ve only ever encountered it in the U.S.
As others said above, I don’t believe we have a demarcation for “official summer shopping season” or the like. And Christmas certainly has nothing official about it. “Black Friday” is some peoples’ interpretation, but certainly not all. All of my Christmas shopping was done weeks and weeks ago, for example, and “Black Friday” is only important so I know when not to go to a brick-and-mortar store.
We also hit Bronner’s every summer when we go to Frankenmuth. If you think it’s strange seeing Christmas stuff and hearing Christmas carols in October-November, then you’ve really got to hear in it May-June-July. ::shudder::
Discounts here start on January 15. I believe the date is set by the government. The idea is to boost the sales after the Christmas holidays which tend to be low. Pre-christmas sales will be high no matter what, so I don’t see the logic behind sales boosts like Black Friday.
I agree completely; the Christmas period should legally be restricted to December 1 to December 25th only, and stores should also be prohibited from playing more than 25% Christmas Music in store, to preserve the sanity of staff.
Then again, there’s never any really good deals in the sales here- even the Boxing Day Sales aren’t that impressive deal-wise, IMHO. I really don’t know why people get worked up over the “Boxing Day Sales”. In fact, I’d also like to see it make law that you can’t return unwanted gifts on Boxing Day, either, but that’s a different thread…
I’m really not sure where you’re pulling this “official designation” stuff from.
There are four seasons and four astrologically significant days (two equinoxes and two solstices). What is so weird about pegging the start of the season to a significant day? Sounds downright logical to me.
I think that a lot of it is media hype. They have to have something to talk about when there are so many news outlets having to fill up so much airtime. I am a practical guy, the summer starts off when school lets out since there are so many things that change when you got kids running around and the X-mas shopping season starts after T-Giving since the family is all together and we draw names and get wish lists from the kids.
Because seasons are always presented as spans of time characterized by a certain climate, not just a range of dates.
It seems especially weird when winter weather certainly starts well before December 21 and March 21 is just about when we start to get fed up with it; and the leaves don’t start changing until a number of weeks after September 21. Nobody would look at the wet, cold, slushy slop outside and call that autumn just because the solstice hasn’t happened yet.
In fact, we call the solstices Midwinter and Midsummer, which seem – well, not really accurate either, but at least they acknowledge that they occur during the season in question, not just as it begins. Of course, calling March 21 Midspring would just be a cruel joke. But it certainly makes no sense to say that winter starts on Midwinter Day.