Frame: Why I Hate Black Friday

I love Christmas, and I love buying Christmas presents. But I hate Black Friday, and everything it stands for. Black Friday is the cheap, all-you-can-eat buffet of the gift-giving paradigm. Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Macy’s, Barnes and Noble, they’re all gloppy, oily, hours-old pans of suck on Black Friday. And they’re all screaming at you.

Quick! Buy this thing! It’s on sale!

Hurry! Buy this thing that just came on the market! Don’t know anyone that wants it? Buy it for yourself! Plus, it’s on sale!

Wake up! You need to get in line at 5am to buy a massively large piece of electronic equipment that no one actually needs! Look- It’s on sale!

Push that person in front of you out of the way! She’s buying something you might want! AND IT’S ON SALE!

The act of choosing a gift should be thoughtful, and pre-meditated, and fun – not a noisy, pushy trip to retail hell. If you feel so harassed about buying presents that you need to get everything done in one day, at break-neck speed, while mowing down everyone in your path to buy generic big box crap, maybe you should just renounce gift giving altogether.

I love Christmas, and I love buying presents. This year I will choose them as I always do. Slowly, deliberately. I’ll make lists and special trips and phone calls to track down unique items. I will have so much fun finding things that the people I love will love. And I will do none of this on Black Friday.