Black Friday All Week Long

The timing of things are getting all squashed up and there doesn't seem to be anything special about the holidays any more.

For example, I'm sure there's one station that changes to an all-holiday format on Thanksgiving in every major radio market. Here in Northern Virginia, our station switched to that format last week (one week before Thanksgiving). That's not so bad because I can just avoid the station until I'm ready for 24/7 Christmas music.

But one tradition (or badge of honor) that I enjoyed over the long Thanksgiving Day weekend was getting out early on Black Friday and doing my part to keep the economy going. Even a couple of years ago, when the stores started opening up late on Thursday night, it was still an adventure to see what could be bought and my badge of honor became staying up all night and hitting as many stores as I could.

Now that's changed because I've already done most of my Black Friday shopping. That's because of the ridiculous "Black Friday Week" or "Pre-Black Friday Sales" that some retailers has begun. Um, doesn't that take some of the steam out of Black Friday? Yes, there are still some good bargains out there, but it's no longer worth my time and energy to run out in the middle of the night (or even early Friday morning) to get anything.

So, to whoever thought of extended Black Friday to a whole week or (in some cases, a whole month), I hate you for taking away another tradition, but I thank you for letting me sleep in this week.