Black Friday are two words that convey an image of long lines, overflowing shopping carts, hoards of shoppers and a three inch stack of advertisements in the Thanksgiving day newspaper. Fortunately for retailers those words convey images of big dollar signs, but unfortunately, some shoppers who end up with a lot of Christmas debt in their quest for the perfect Christmas holiday. So the big question is, what can we do as the consumer to decrease our individual debt, and enjoy a less stressful, more of the old school traditional, Christmas holiday?
When I was young Christmas was a magical time of year, maybe because I was just a kid without responsibility’s or a care in the world. But now as an adult with a child, I see this holiday very differently. Such as, the financial side, but I also want my son to experience Christmas as I did as a kid without going overboard. So each holiday we drag the decorations out of the attic. We put up the lights and hang ornaments on the tree with Christmas music creating the holiday spirit. But before a single ornament is hung the stress of the holiday shopping season has already started on that day after the thanksgiving feast. Maybe we should all take a page out of Santa’s book by making a list and checking it twice or three times, and make the best financial choice for our holiday budget.
As my son is counting down the days until the holiday school break and freedom, I am counting my pennies. As kids we never noticed the stress that our parents were dealing with during this festive time of year, and when the sun came up on Christmas morning, we would rush to see all the shiny wrapped presents Santa left for us. Therefore, as kids we would see and feel all of the joy and excitement, b...
... middle of paper ...
...ving expenses. Giving that, when we are in the thick of the holiday shopping season, and we have those sought after items in our shopping carts, we rarely stop to think of the consequences of using credit cards.
In the end, Christmas is not about money it is about lasting memories. We can all do our part to avoid the holiday spending frenzy by making our gift giving list, checking it twice, finding the lowest prices and most of all, sticking to a budget. To this end, hopefully this will help us to be prepared for the next holiday season by using some of the options mentioned such as starting a Christmas club or a savings account, using layaway, and making that gift list, and then sticking with it. The moral of the story is to plan ahead to avoid financial hardship in the new year. This means planning ahead, because December 25th is the same day every year.
Thanksgiving Day is a day of family, food, and giving thanks for the blessings in life and yet some people believe Thanksgiving to be a prep day for Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. The focus of Thanksgiving shifted from family bonding to incessant shopping. This trend of taking away from the hours of Thanksgiving in order to shop is enraging. It steals away from family time for the shoppers and the employees. Employers threaten workers that if they do not work on that certain holiday, they will be fired. Black Friday should be kept to Friday instead of moving in on my family time. The whole culture of Black Friday has become repugnant and unnecessary.
Christmas has consumed itself. At its conception, it was a fine idea, and I imagine that at one point its execution worked very much as it was intended to. These days, however, its meaning has been perverted; its true purpose ignored and replaced with a purpose imagined by those who merely go through the motions, without actually knowing why they do so.
Imagine having to work on thanksgiving. Not only do those people miss out on Black Friday, but also miss out on time with your family. They also get to go to work more than likely sleep deprived, deal with unpleasant customers, and constant lines. Curtis West worked as a Macy’s employee. In his 24 years of work for them he had to work a total of 19 Black Fridays. He said it wasn’t bad when Black Friday started off, because it usually meant going in at 5 am on Friday. Now for sto...
It is seen in everything from the hoarding of material objects to the destruction of friendships, both of which are popular themes when regarding the topic of Black Friday shopping. Black Friday has become Black Thursday, a trend which has only shown up within the last decade. The great American holiday that is Thanksgiving is celebrated because of our gratefulness toward all that we have, a holiday that is meant to be spent gathered around a table of our loved ones. However, the retail holiday that consumes the day afterward has begun to overflow into our gatherings, and it is due to the greed of the American people. Were it not for the market’s demand for earlier sales, stores would not open their sales on Thursday nights. Everyone would simply wait until early the next morning to start off on their shopping extravaganzas, and the sales themselves would likely be far less violent as
Christmas is a special time of year that deserves to be remembered for its true meaning. Every year, Christmas becomes more and more commercialized and society forgets the origin of Christmas. It was not started with cookies, toys, and a fat man that delivers them, but instead it started with a humble inn where our Savior was born. The definition of Christmas is “a holiday on December 25 celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.” Nowhere in that definition does it say anything about the outrageous pressure society has set on consumers to buy, buy, buy during the Christmas season. Christmas is about presence not presents.
Ah, to be a kid again. How wonderful it would be to relive the magic of Christmas. Don’t get me wrong, I have always been a kid at heart and a true lover of Christmas. But as we get older and we realize that Santa Claus and the North Pole were just stories our parents told us so we’d behave, Christmas starts to lose that magical feeling. No matter how much we might still love it, Christmastime just isn’t the same as when we were young. And at a time of all the aggravating shopping hustle and bustle, dents in the pockets, headaches, traffic jams and long lines, I begin to realize that God has sent me the most magical Christmas gift of all, a beautiful three year old whom I can relive Christmas in all over. Through my child’s eyes, I see myself each time his face lights up at the sight of Santa, and I feel his anticipation each morning as he faithfully opens up one more window on the Christmas calendar. Tonight, as we decorate the tree, I admiringly watched his tiny fingers delicately place each of the ornaments on all the same branches until they drooped to the floor. So proud of his work, I secretly placed some elsewhere, as to not hurt his feelings, and wondered how many times my own mother had done the same thing. And after a long day of shopping and excitement, I watched his eyelids begin to droop while lying underneath the warm glow of the Christmas tree lights.
Ah Christmas, it is said to be the most wonderful time of the year. In the United States Christmas is a time of giving and receiving, spending time with your family, and in most Christian families, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Christmas is hands-down the most highly commercialized holiday celebrated by Americans. In fact, according to CBS news, the average American will spend $700 on gifts this holiday season, totaling for a whopping $465 billion spent nation-wide. From mall Santas as far as the eye can see, to hearing Christmas music in every retail store you enter. Christmas is a time of high spirits and high spending in the U.S.
Holidays have always been known to affect our consumer culture for many years, but how it all began eludes many people and very few studies have been completed on it. Even though some say that the subject is too broad to precisely identify how holidays, especially Christmas, directly affect our market, I have found that people’s values, expectations and rituals related to holidays can cause an excessive amount of spending among our society. Most people are unaware that over the centuries holidays have become such a profitable time of year for industries that they now starting to promote gift ideas on an average of a month and a half ahead of actual holiday dates to meet consumer demands.
The holidays, the time of year to spend time with family and enjoy many joyous traditions. While the winter holidays are one of the most beautiful times of the year, it is also extremely hectic. The closer we get to December 25th, the more urgent it becomes to find that perfect gift, at the perfect price. That need for that marked down price tag has caused many large retailers to create Black Friday. However what started as an innocent marketing plan has become its own national holiday.
A man with a small heart, the Grinch, once thought, “Maybe christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store, maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more.” This brings a whole new meaning for Christmas. One that makes you think a little bit deeper about the things in your life. Instead of complaining about the presents you didn’t get, or the people you didn’t get to see, you should be thankful for the stuff you did get, and the people you did get to see. This winter break I am looking forward to going skiing, getting to sleep in, and getting to see family.
Most years I dread the holidays simply because I hate all of the stress caused by the frenzied shopping,
All the children put their First Christmas ornament on the tree, that I brought, as a gift.I am not usually a shopper, but during the Christmas season, I actually enjoy shopping. I rarely go into department stores, but during the Christmas season, I love to shop. The stores are so beautifully decorated and very festive. I can easily get carried away, with spending so much money. I must admit the thought of spending too much money hardly comes to mind.
Holiday shopping, for me, is a nightmare because of the abundance of crowds, all of the fighting and competitiveness. I believe those last minute shoppers are the worst, they are the ones that are rude and impatient. For some people, with lots of patience, dealing with holiday shoppers is a good experience. For people like me, who has very little patience, it is a dreadful experience. Another aspect of shopping during the holidays is dealing with tired, overworked and frustrated employees. They are just trying to get their jobs done as quickly as possible, so they can go home to their families. Meanwhile, you have those employees that are cheerful and are eager to help the distraught shoppers. Also, during the holidays horrible accidents can occur often at this time of year. I am going to portray the dangers and mishaps that can occur during the holidays. I am not anti-holiday, but the older I get the more I don't have any desire to be exposed to all of the potential chaos.
On the other hand, more than half of the rest of the world will not be having the kind of holiday with presents, fireplaces, and television specials that most Americans are used to. In fact, the money U.S. parents spend on Christmas presents alone this year will probably be more than the annual income of over half the worlds population. It is heartbreaking.
Every mother knows the joy of the holidays starts with holiday cleaning, right? NOT. After holiday cleaning is more like it. Who can stand to decorate, bringing out all that merry stuff, while the house is already cluttered? The children, perhaps, but not me.