Black friday

[tex]

Re: Black friday

Has anyone decided what they want for Christmas yet?

This year, I have had the irony of wanting a new Member of Parliament - when was the last time that happened?

Ive asked santa for some irony....just pulling your leg George

[zabadak]

Re: Black friday

Kids on the naughty list get the best presents...

[George 1978]

Re: Black friday

Ive asked santa for some irony....just pulling your leg George

Well they do stop your clothes from getting creased.

[George 1978]

Re: Black friday

Kids on the naughty list get the best presents...

Kids are like fresh cream cakes - they can be naughty, but otherwise they are nice.

[beccabear67]

Re: Black friday

Canada has Thanksgiving earlier in October and yet we got lumbered with all this black friday stuff as the friday after the U.S. Thanksgiving in late November. I'm surprised it's reached England. I wonder if they've been banging this same drum in continental Europe? Just never thought to ask the relatives in Holland... you should've seen their faces when we had some corn on the cob from the Kentucky Fried Chicken once when some were visiting... that's something they would feed to pigs!

Halloween when I was little was more of a mummers affair over here... old clothes, sheets, straw and blackend faces, bonfires and crackers, not trademarked and copyrighted ready-made costumes from large entertainment corporations. Nobody went as anything, you made something up. We had the jack o' lanterns, candy apples, popcorn balls. Slowly we started seeing Star Wars characters and Disney Princesses door to door. Also more adults started making a big adult thing of it with elaborate Vampires and Zombies outfits and theme parties, loads of decorations... I find that quite a strange trend.

[amethyst]

Re: Black friday

Well the UK has changed so much in the last 20 years since millennium,we are now known as the 51st state,what happens across the pond always ends up in good old blight.I haven't been out to the shops looking for bargains with all this black Friday stuff.The only half dozen items I got was from Boots saving up points during the year so I got £32 worth of gifts for free.As for Christmas it's not the same anymore.There is nothing that I really want would rather help someone else who is less fortunate so probably be donating to the food bank a Christmas toy for Morrisons and Salvation Army Christmas appeal.Have also made 20 cards handed them into the library and told them have the money for charity.

[George 1978]

Re: Black friday

Canada has Thanksgiving earlier in October and yet we got lumbered with all this black friday stuff as the friday after the U.S. Thanksgiving in late November. I'm surprised it's reached England. I wonder if they've been banging this same drum in continental Europe? Just never thought to ask the relatives in Holland... you should've seen their faces when we had some corn on the cob from the Kentucky Fried Chicken once when some were visiting... that's something they would feed to pigs!

I am surprised as well - how long has black Friday been a tradition in the United States? - yet it was only around five years ago when it took off (literally) in Great Britain.

When one thinks of the jobs that security guards have to put up with when it comes to shoplifting and anti-social behaviour, without having all this Black Friday nonsense to put up with. They may get paid a bit extra in the run up to Christmas but that is not the point, and shoplifting and civil recovery demands increase in November and December, no doubt. For many years, decades in fact, the Wednesdays from mid-November to the week before Christmas with late-night shopping (I refer to the opening hours of the Nottingham Victoria Centre), and it can be such an ordeal even to get a loaf of bread in Tesco while most are after the offers which are better than half price.

[George 1978]

Re: Black friday

Well the UK has changed so much in the last 20 years since millennium,we are now known as the 51st state,what happens across the pond always ends up in good old blight.I haven't been out to the shops looking for bargains with all this black Friday stuff.The only half dozen items I got was from Boots saving up points during the year so I got £32 worth of gifts for free.As for Christmas it's not the same anymore.There is nothing that I really want would rather help someone else who is less fortunate so probably be donating to the food bank a Christmas toy for Morrisons and Salvation Army Christmas appeal.Have also made 20 cards handed them into the library and told them have the money for charity.

You don't get anything for nothing these days - I would think of it as suspicious if someone got even £3.20 worth of gifts for free, never mind £32, and I bet that the security guards would be as well - I have read about people being reprimanded by security on suspicion of shoplifting simply because an offer has been accidently implicated as being free. However, I do believe what you have just said and that you have shopped at Boots so often that you have accumulated enough points to get free gifts - well done for that, but in hindsight it does not seem like reality.

When WHSmith had its Clubcard in the mid 1990s, launched at the same time as Tesco's was, I was a member, and when I used to pay for my magazines and stationery, and was asked every other visit whether I would like to spend some of my Clubcard points, but I almost certainly responded, saying that "I would save them for a rainy day" or something like that. I used to get one point for every 10p spent, although I believe that they increased it to £1 to make it more challenging. By the time I considered using the points, I believe that they had stopped the scheme which was a pity.

Each year I also chose a charity at random, and when I do my Christmas cards, I send one to a charity with a cheque donation enclosed - I have chosen Kidscape this year as it has had a low profile in recent years, and I was bullied at school back in the 1980s and early 1990s, I thought that my philanthropism could be deserving in their direction this year.

[beccabear67]

Re: Black friday

We've had a 'Santas anonymous' program here for ages spearheaded by a local radio station.

Rewards points are also a newer thing.

I think the black friday name is something to do with it's the day where a lot of business expected to go from being in the red for the year to being in the black, but I could be wrong on that.

They didn't used to know about boxing day in the U.S. at all, and now it's just a second black friday to them I think with boxing day and boxing week sales promotions. It's definitely been all about clearance sales in Canada for the last two or three decades so maybe we're to blame for that. When I was younger it was about eating the leftovers and visiting people while everyone was boxing things up or taking boxes to the trash maybe, maybe returning/exchanging things at shops?

[darren]

Re: Black friday

Hi becca u say in the u s a they didnt know about boxing day and now its a second black friday.
well u could sort of say black friday is an early christmas before the main event.

i just wonder isblack friday on the same dates everywhere?

we've had a 'santas anonymous' program here for ages spearheaded by a local radio station.

Rewards points are also a newer thing.

I think the black friday name is something to do with it's the day where a lot of business expected to go from being in the red for the year to being in the black, but i could be wrong on that.

They didn't used to know about boxing day in the u.s. At all, and now it's just a second black friday to them i think with boxing day and boxing week sales promotions. It's definitely been all about clearance sales in canada for the last two or three decades so maybe we're to blame for that. When i was younger it was about eating the leftovers and visiting people while everyone was boxing things up or taking boxes to the trash maybe, maybe returning/exchanging things at shops?

[darren]

Re: Black friday

Probably the rest of the studio ghibli films but i wonder will they be cheaper in the boxing day sales.

has anyone decided what they want for christmas yet?

This year, i have had the irony of wanting a new member of parliament - when was the last time that happened?

[George 1978]

Re: Black friday

I think the black friday name is something to do with it's the day where a lot of business expected to go from being in the red for the year to being in the black, but I could be wrong on that.

I have always associated the phrase with something negative, such as Black Monday in 1987 when the stock market crashed on 19th October that year, probably unrelated to the storms the previous week.