| Black Friday | ||
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Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States, which marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Because Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday in November in the United States, Black Friday occurs between the 23rd and the 29th of November.
Black Friday is not an official holiday, but many employees have the day off which increases the number of potential shoppers. Many retailers open extremely early, with most of the retailers typically opening at 5AM or even earlier. |
Larger retailers such as Sears, Macys, Target and Walmart open as early as midnight on Thanksgiving, the start of Black Friday, and remain open for 24 hours throughout the day until midnight the following Saturday. Retailers offer doorbuster deals to draw people. Though Black Friday has served as the unofficial beginning of the Christmas season, at least since the start of the modern Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1924, the term "Black Friday" has been traced back only to the 1960s. The term "Black Friday" originated in Philadelphia in reference to the heavy traffic on that day. | |