What is Black Friday? Black Friday is a shopping day for a combination of reasons. As the first day after the last major holiday before Christmas it marks the unofficial beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Many employers give their employees the day off as part of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. This shopping day has the best deals of the year for almost any Christmas or winter holiday gift. Black Friday has slowly turned into a Black Thursday through Monday. The last day of the sale has adopted the name Cyber Monday which the deals get even better but there tends to be a shortage of certain items in certain stores. Many stores offer highly promoted sales on Black Friday and open very early, such as at midnight, or may even start their sales at some time on Thanksgiving.

Black Friday is not an official holiday, but California and some other states observe it as a holiday for state government employees sometimes in line of another federal holiday such as Columbus Day. Many non retail employees and schools have both Thanksgiving and the following Friday off which along with the following regular weekend, makes it a four day weekend increasing the number of potential shoppers. Black Friday has been the busiest shopping day of the year in the United States since 2005 people have described it as the busiest shopping day of the year for a much longer period of time. In 2014 spending volume on Black Friday fell for the first time since the 2008 recession. $50.9 billion was spent during the four day Black Friday weekend, down 11% from the previous year. Overall Black Friday has changes holiday shopping for the best. The deals are the best all year and help families save. Even if you don’t buy it is still fun to go see and have a good time after your Thanksgiving feast.