“Black Friday” is an informal name given to the 4th Friday of November following Thanksgiving and it’s regarded as the beginning of the United States Christmas shopping season. Since 2005 it has become the busiest shopping day in United States history. However, Black Friday should not be the day after Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving was originally planned to be a day where the community came together to give thanks for the blessing of a good harvest. Nowadays people aren’t blessing the good harvest, but still, follow the same principles of coming together and being thankful for all that they have. Because of Black Friday, this communal effort of Thanksgiving turns into a day of mass chaos and greed. People completely disregard each other’s livelihood just so they can save money on the latest and greatest smartphones or TVs. The United States as a whole turns our heads away from being thankful for this materialistic attitude of “mine, mine, mine”. Since 2006, there have been 10 deaths and 111 injuries connected to Black Friday shopping events. Even though you have a better chance of winning the lottery than dying from Black Friday, there shouldn’t be any odds of death from Christmas shopping.

Another issue with Black Friday is that although it’s supposed to take place on Friday, many major department stores either open or set up to open on Thanksgiving. This means that workers have to leave their families on Thanksgiving to work. Stores such as JCPenny, Best Buy, Radio Shack, Target, Walmart, Belk, Sears have been opening up their stores at 5 and 6 pm on Thanksgiving. Stores should be able to give their workers off for the holidays, or at least until the clock strikes midnight.

Overall, as an alternative solution Black Friday should just be moved to Saturday. It will give families more time to spend their Thanksgivings together. It will also give them time on Friday to rest up in preparation for the newly created “Black Saturday.”