Thinking ahead

A month to go before the big day and Sweetie is taken care of for Christmas. All I have to do now is figure out how to wrap a rather large item I found for him at a bargain price, and how to get it under the tree. Happily, some friends are storing it for now, and after all, I do have a month to figure it out.

I was surprised and happy at saving a few bucks on this kinda cool item my honey has been talking about for years (I SO want to tell what it is!) since it was touted at the store as a 'Black Friday' sale. The concept of Black Friday is still new enough this side of the border that I had to explain it to a friend of mine; "the day the stores figure they get into the black, and everything from now on is profit" is how it was explained to me.

We've generally been more excited about Boxing Day in Canada, but the Black Friday phenomenon got me thinking about shopping as sport.

A woman in California pepper-sprayed fellow shoppers as she defended the stuff she wanted to buy at a discount retailer. She was already at a discount retailer, and she brought pepper spray with her to a midnight opening as she looked for bigger bargains. Bizarre.

Now, the numbers seem to suggest this was the biggest shopping weekend the US has ever seen, with more money spent over the last three days than during the same period ever before, even during the boom years of the 90s and early 2000s. With 9% unemployment, how is it possible this was the biggest year ever?

Now I'm worried, because perhaps our US cousins are headed back into the trouble that started our 'great recession' of 2008, the one that's not over yet. If you're out of work or in trouble, doesn't it make sense to cut back on the shopping?

So maybe this is a sign of the US economy on the rebound?
Or is it a sign of collective insanity that's going to pull the world down with it?
Gee, I hope it's the former and not the latter.