Ya Gotta Know This About That: What If Black Friday Was Cancelled?

What is Black Friday Anyway?

When Santa's Sleigh is the last thing to roll down New York's famous 34th Street during the Macy's parade, the CEO's at all department stores begin to salivate heavily. They wring their greedy little hands in joy and anticipation of opening their doors either late Thanksgiving or super early on Black Friday.

These CEO's know that their store, which has been in the red all year, might finally be in the black after one day's shopping. All year they plan the advertising to give a glimpse of those super bargains. Sure they spend a lot on advertising. A one page colored ad in the Wall Street Journal costs between $210, 300 and $248,000. Wow that is some dough. The New York Times would be about $24,000.

Around Springfield, it might not be that high, but coupled with the $3.00 per paper that the SJ-R now charges, do we now know which other CEO wrings their hands in joy prior to the Thanksgiving Day's advertising? Me thinks it might be Gate House Media...the owner of SJ-R. Sure they had extra costs involved in moving the printing operations from Springfield to Peoria back a while ago, but $3.00 for papers on Sunday and Thanksgiving?????

The stores show these wonderful super cheap bargains.....but they conveniently forget to tell you that there are only 3 to maybe 4 and 10 items if you're really lucky of each super cheap item. You get there thinking you are the one who will get the bargain of the day.... only to find the line stretches down the street, around the corner and 15 blocks down the dirtiest alley you've ever seen. All for the sake of getting one of the cheap 3 or 4 items.

But the store got you in the store....so, might as well do some other shopping. Some items of which, they most likely have marked up to cover their sale prices. (Just like the myriad of closeout sale items I've seen on businesses going out of business.....they mark the prices up to mark them down.)

You go down the aisles with your Christmas list. A shirt and a truck for Billy and socks and a bee bee gun for Johnny. Jimmy gets a new coat and three books he wanted. Sally wants that new doll which eats, drinks, sleeps, and poops. Ginger, being the teenager she is, wants that wonderful and costly newly designed LCD television which you could have gotten for the super low price of $98.00 on the super deals but they were all out when you got there so now you must pay $248.00. Your cart runneth over. And your billfold will be empty....but you are smiling because you went to the Black Friday sales and made some store CEO happy. His store will now be in the black.

What if Black Friday was cancelled? Employers could quit giving this Friday off as an extra holiday.....that would save production and money. The department stores could save money on advertising but they would really be in the red come the end of the year. You could save gas getting to the store and your wallet would be fatter until you went shopping on another day....but you might get some bargains going shopping where sales are on the items you have on your list instead of shopping where you went first. You could sleep in if you still had the day off. You could stay home and eat leftovers instead of having to buy lunch out on Black Friday.

See there are myriads of answers and reasonings to that question. Am I out shopping this early morning at 6:30 am?????? No, I'm still in my frog pajamas. Let me tell you I'm getting tired of wearing these frog pajamas so a new pair is on my list....maybe some nice new pair with a turkey on it .... just my style! Today is still today later today so I might venture out...who knows. Maybe they will have that one lone sale item I really wanted but decided it just wasn't worth it at 2:00 a.m. this morning. Maybe I'll see you out shopping today or later this season. We can have coffee....you buy!

Area Pictures

Petersburg Harris High School

1940-1950's era

Downtown Petersburg. This

picture appeared in the Petersburg

Observer 9-4-2004. Unknown date of the picture.

An old advertisement for the Elkhart Elevator

which was operated by Allison, which also ran the

Greenview elevator.

1937-39

Oliver tractor with a Grain Master Combine

Logan County

Illinois State Fair Happy Hallow Postcard

Springfield....unsure of date

Recipe

The holiday season is officially here so it's time to start planning your "to make" list of candy and cookies. High on my list is Peppermint Bark. It's easy and people love this sweet yet minty concoction.

Peppermint Bark

2 pounds of white chocolate ( the real stuff is always the best)

30 small candy canes

Line a jelly roll size pan with foil or parchment paper. Place candy canes in heavy plastic freezer bags and pound with a meat mallet or a rolling pin until crushed. Put chocolate in a glass bowl and put in the microwave for 4 to 5 minutes....always watch closely and take out every minute or so starting with the second minute and stir the chocolate. Take from microwave and stir in the peppermint pieces. Then spread evenly in the jelly roll pan. Cool for at least an hour. Break it up by slamming the pan on the counter. Store in a tightly covered container.

Quote Of the Day

My health is good,

it's my age that's bad.

--Roy Acuff

I bet some of you are sitting in your desk chair reading this blog with an extended bloated stomach from the 7,000 calorie meal you ate yesterday. And you don't know why but you're hungry this morning and thinking about going to get a big turkey sandwich for breakfast. Well...that's better than a piece of that leftover pumpkin pie for breakfast.

When we're sitting at the Thanksgiving table with the plate that really needed sideboards, we don't really care that the 7,000 calories are going into our tiny little stomach to later become a big wad of fat on our getting bigger hiney. Just think, there are 3,500 calories in one pound so you just ate 2 pounds of ugly body weight.

I always picture a two pound of hamburger to see what 2 pounds of ugly body weight looks like. So if you gain 10 pounds of body weight, and look at a 10 pound package of hamburger....you will find by looking at 10 pounds of beef that you are in real trouble, because you're going to need some new clothes.....and a diet.

So today as you sit at your computer.....get up every once in a while and do five jumping jacks, 6 leg lifts on each leg, get two cans of vegetables and lift them above your head and down to your shoulders 10 times each, and go outside and walk to the mailbox 8 times. You have just done a bit of good for getting those hamburger look-a-like pounds off your old hiney.

Let's work out today because we have another HUGE meal to go through in just 30 days from today......Happy day!