Black Friday New York Time to Find Best Buys

Too rushed to run to all these sites? Time to click and play what's the deal at your favorite store! Enjoy!!!

And so it's off to a running start on Black Friday, which just by the way, has a long proud history. So in case you are stuck on line at some brick-and-mortar establishment, instead of shopping online in the comfort of your own home, here's the lowdown on how the big day got to be that way...and trust me, it has absolutely nothing to do with the Pilgrims.

Although it is in some dispute, in general the term refers to the day that retailers are supposed to finally start turning a profit for the year, hence, going into the black. According to the TOTALLY (joke) reliable source, Mr. Wikipedia, The day's name originated in Philadelphia, where it originally was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic which would occur on the day after Thanksgiving. Use of the term started before 1966 and began to see broader use outside Philadelphia around 1975. Later an alternative explanation began to be offered: that Black Friday indicates the point at which retailers begin to turn a profit, or are 'in the black'.

The tradition involved exhausted clerks opening retail establishments at 6 a.m. Then in the late 2000s, according to the popular wikicribsheet, that time slipped back to 5 a.m. and even 4 a.m.

In 2011, spurred one can only assume, by a gasping, sputtering consumer society on the brink of, good heavens, not buying anything it didn't really need, such modern cathedrals of consumption as Target, Kohls, Macy's, and Best Buy decided that workers would stay much more alert if they skipped sleep entirely and opened at midnight, but hey, they still have jobs, right?

Because Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday in November in the United States, the day after occurs between the 23rd and the 29th of November. That means, that by the time you read this, you have but a few short hours before it's time to fight back from that turkey/tryptophan induced coma and get out there and spend, spend, spend.

But if you must, and actually need something, it is a heck of a good time to go buy it; the deals are out there, just waiting for you. So like I said, enjoy.

And don't forget, Christmas is just around the corner!