I’ll keep my multicoloured Friday, thanks.

So, apparently some Canadian retailers are trying to jump on the Black Friday bandwagon.

I’d like to state, for the record, that I OBJECT, for the following reasons:

1. It doesn’t make sense. Most Canadians have NEITHER the Friday after American Thanksgiving NOR the Friday before Canadian Thanksgiving off (for the purposes of frenzied consumerism or any other). As long as that is true, retailers will never get the same bang for their sales buck as they do in the U.S.
2. It’s confusing. Which Friday is it, anyway? Some Canadians go cross-border shopping on U.S. Black Friday, but now businesses up here are trying to colour today black, six weeks earlier. You can’t do both. It’s grabby-looking and awkward.
3. It’s WAY too early to start Christmas shopping in Canada. Don’t get me wrong, I adore Christmas, and I enjoy ambling around a festively-decorated mall – when the season is right. The commercial-powers-that-be seem to be decorating earlier and earlier each year (well before Halloween these days), and that doesn’t make me feel festive. It makes me want to poke an elf in the eye.
4. It’s THANKSGIVING, for pilgrim’s sake. You’re supposed to be with people you love, having a cozy meal around a warm table, feeling grateful for the gifts in your life. Something about “Dear [worship recipient], thank you for the blessings and good fortune surrounding me; now all I need is a flatscreen with digital surround-sound at 70% off and my life will be complete” just doesn’t ring true.
5. The Black Friday phenomenon is just… disturbing. Let’s be frank: offering some great deals and asking people to come out shopping on their holiday one month before Christmas is reasonable, but this innocent-enough concept has morphed into something beastly.

Honestly, images like these make my heart want to puke. Not only are folks leaving their Thanksgiving table (and I mean that literally – Black Friday sales have crept up in the last decade, until they’re now happening as early as 8 pm on “Gray Thursday”) to buy shit that’s essentially meaningless, they are doing so with such frantic rapacity that people get injured – shoved, crushed, stabbed, punched – every year. In 2008, a Wal-Mart employee in Valley Stream, NY, was actually trampled to death by the crowd.

Come ON. That is completely f*cked up.

Thus, here is my solemn vow to all Canadian retailers, and to all of you in Blogland:

I hereby swear that I will strenuously avoid all businesses in the whole world offering sales of any magnitude on any Black or even Grayish Friday or Thursday or WHATEVER*, until death shall shuffle me off this mortal coil. If ever I should stray from my sworn promise, my next of kin is authorized to make me listen to Rebecca Black’s Friday on repeat for as long as s/he shall deem necessary.

Happy Thanksgiving, Canucks.

*Groceries excepted. Pie is not optional.

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