Thanksgiving and Black Friday

By Karina Rook

We got through Halloween fine, Tim and I were just as excited as the kids – playing around with the dry ice and answering the doorbell with huge smiles. I just threw out the last of the candy, the dregs that no one wanted. Nobody likes candy corn, Tootsie Rolls or Jolly Ranchers. The school offered a candy donation program whereby students bring in their candy and the school receives $1 per pound from an organization that mails all the candy to US soldiers overseas. Interesting…..I wonder how many pounds they got….

Then Thanksgiving became the talk of the workplace (I got a small contract at a local start-up recently), with people describing where they were flying, or what they were cooking at home. Then the office slowly emptied over the three days before Thanksgiving until come Wednesday afternoon there was only 10% of us left. We all bailed at 4pm.

The day itself was weird – to us, anyway. It felt like a holiday, but there were no flags, decorations or parades – just a quiet day being with family. The smell of turkeys roasting wafted down our suburban street. We took some Vegemite sandwiches to Golden Gate park and watched our grown-up kids on the playground equipment.

It was Black Friday when everyone came alive again, the streets busy with cars, queues into the shopping malls, shoppers lining up for midnight store openings. Entering our local electronics store was fun because the shelves were empty and the floor was stacked with boxes of TVs, printers, you name it. There was a feeling of frenzy, but we walked away empty-handed, by choice.