It wasn’t until I arrived home yesterday evening and tuned into the satellite channels on my TV that I remembered it was Thanksgiving Day in the USA. It was the full programme of American football fixtures that actually triggered my memory. For men at least, football is one of the big Thanksgiving traditions, possibly whilst the women are busy preparing the turkey dinner – or is that idea just too old fashioned, sexist and stereotypical? (I’m just not that politically correct these days!)

Anyway, Thanksgiving is more or less the American equivalent of the harvest festival that is  celebrated in other parts of the world, giving thanks for peace, and of course, a good harvest.

Another tradition that has sprung up from this particular holiday period, and is now being copied in Europe, is Black Friday – the day following Thanksgiving. This is now the busiest shopping day of the year in the US, as shoppers scramble around frantically to seek out that special ‘one off’ bargain being offered by the retailers for one day only. The term ‘Black Friday’ was first used by police in Philadelphia in the 1960s to describe the massive crowds and traffic jams that hit the sales after Thanksgiving. It wasn’t until the 1980s that an alternative theory started to appear, suggesting that it was the day that marked retailers moving from the red to the black, as they started made profits for the first time in the year.

As a footnote to the 2011 sales, not only were all records broken with an estimated 152 million people (nearly half the population) passing through the checkouts, but in Los Angeles up to 20 people were injured when one woman resorted to using a pepper spray on her fellow shoppers in order to secure the best bargains!

It wasn’t until I arrived home yesterday evening and tuned into the satellite channels on my TV that I remembered it was Thanksgiving Day in the USA. It was the full programme of American football fixtures that actually triggered my memory. For men at least, football is one of the big Thanksgiving traditions, possibly whilst the women are busy preparing the turkey dinner – or is that idea just too old fashioned, sexist and stereotypical? (I’m just not that politically correct these days!)

Anyway, Thanksgiving is more or less the American equivalent of the harvest festival that is  celebrated in other parts of the world, giving thanks for peace, and of course, a good harvest.

Another tradition that has sprung up from this particular holiday period, and is now being copied in Europe, is Black Friday – the day following Thanksgiving. This is now the busiest shopping day of the year in the US, as shoppers scramble around frantically to seek out that special ‘one off’ bargain being offered by the retailers for one day only. The term ‘Black Friday’ was first used by police in Philadelphia in the 1960s to describe the massive crowds and traffic jams that hit the sales after Thanksgiving. It wasn’t until the 1980s that an alternative theory started to appear, suggesting that it was the day that marked retailers moving from the red to the black, as they started made profits for the first time in the year.

As a footnote to the 2011 sales, not only were all records broken with an estimated 152 million people (nearly half the population) passing through the checkouts, but in Los Angeles up to 20 people were injured when one woman resorted to using a pepper spray on her fellow shoppers in order to secure the best bargains!