Black Friday is upon us!

Sit back and digest the turkey, pumpkin and other Thanksgiving treats, as you begin to prepare for the Black Friday shopping chaos. Yes, the day after Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season and the retailers keep opening earlier and earlier each year.

The nickname was spawned out of Philadelphia in the mid-1960’s for (as Wikipedia describes) “used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic which would occur on the day after Thanksgiving.”

Decades later the term became metaphoric for companies climbing out of the red and into “the black”.

Philadelphia’s “Black Friday” by Martin L. Apfelbaum, Executive Vice President of Earl P.L. Apfelbaum, Inc., of
Philadelphia

JANUARY 1966 — “Black Friday” is the name which the Philadelphia Police
Department has given to the Friday following Thanksgiving Day.  It is not a
term of endearment to them.  “Black Friday” officially opens the Christmas
shopping season in center city, and it usually brings massive traffic jams
and over-crowded sidewalks as the downtown stores are mobbed from opening to
closing.

This year proved to be no exception — especially at Apfelbaum’s.  The pace
was hectic and the traffic was heavy.  Here’s a capsule report of how
Apfelbaum’s weathered “Black Friday.”

All in all, “Black Friday” certainly lived-up to its reputation.  In fact it
lasted for two days, with more of the same traffic and congestion the
Saturday which followed.

Is this activity unusual?  A little.  But just stop in on any day of the
week and you will see more action at Apfelbaum’s than at any stamp shop in
the world.

So enjoy the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, enjoy the Packers game and get ready because it’s the season…or so it begins.

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