Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Black Friday creates dark families

I know it is Fitness Friday, but our psychological fitness is as important as our physiological self thus every single year without fail, there is always some kind of sad consumer story that comes out from Black Friday, the day after the American Thanksgiving, quite like the Canadian tradition of Boxing Day after Christmass. Our annual boner begins with a Massachusetts man who took home a Black Friday bargain of a brand new 51 inch flat screen television, but left his common law girlfriend's 2 year old son in a car hunting for it, then somehow did a bait and switch with the old boy and the new television. Police were alerted to all of this, removed the child and sent him to the hospital for a precautionary measure, bottom line is that one family may not see their child for awhile, with a charge of reckless endangerment to a child being perhaps a toll he did not bargain for.

Whether consumers are being crushed by doorbusting crowds, cashiers are being overworked and underrested at the register till or producers are bring asked to drop their prices to a impossible rock bottom one to even compete, Black Friday and Boxing Day always forgets these people are people who need to recreate on Saturday and Sunday.

Something happen when the family days, or now weekend, replaced the recreation, relaxation and restful or playful leisure of the happy family, with the non stop production, distribution and continued laborious consumption of the dark family under the days and ways of Black Friday or Boxing Day. We lose our faith in clan, church and community, instead rely on the masses, media and market, we lose a little bit of our hearts, minds and souls with each purchase we make for ourselves, forgeting about the others we could be walking, talking and enjoying our time with. Perhaps Black Friday now past us, we can think something about this before Christmass, so we can doing anything about it after Christmass, so we can all have some real holydays to enjoy our clans, churches and communities, during what should be our time of year.