How Is Black Friday Different This Year? Hip2Save Readers Share Their Memories Of Years Past
Black Friday feels a little different this year…
We’re just gonna say it… Black Friday just isn’t the same as it used to be.
One of the biggest days of the year used to be Black Friday. For us hopeful deal hunters, it was the one day we could score truly epic deals on that year’s most coveted items.
Remember standing in line at midnight to scoop up that big-screen TV you’d been dreaming about? How about spending part of Thanksgiving browsing the ads to find the hottest deals, those that were available for one day only? Some of us would camp outside stores for hours waiting for the doors to open, and when they did, it was game on!
Whether you braved the crowds alone or did it as a family, you knew it would be a wild shopping trip to remember!
Even if you hated Black Friday, the day was a tradition. You knew to expect a crowded shopping mall. You knew to expect certain stores, like Best Buy or Walmart, to be packed with so many people that it was probably a fire hazard. Heck, you even knew to expect a few skirmishes in the shopping aisles! 😂
Still, if you managed to score that rare deal, you knew you’d feel a sense of victory. You knew if you could joyfully return home with that item you or kiddo so desperately wanted, braving the crowds and long lines would be 100% worth it. Most of all, you knew that for better or worse, it would be a day to remember.
There used to be something a little magical about Black Friday. ✨
Then, before we knew it, the world changed a little too fast and the magic of that day began to dwindle.
Black Friday doesn’t seem to even take place on Black Friday anymore. Many stores start their “Black Friday” sales as early as October. 🤯 These sales are almost all online now (thanks to new technology and the aftermath of the pandemic). It’s tempting to purchase gifts from the onlinefort of the couch instead of hitting the stores with a friend or family member. While it has its perks, it feels like we’ve traded making memories for convenience.
It turns out that the Hip2Save team members aren’t the only ones missing the magic of Black Fridays past. When Hip2Save’s Paige recently shared her nostalgia with readers, so many of you wrote in to tell us your favorite Black Friday memories!
Here’s what Hip2Save readers had to say about the Black Friday of yesteryear:
“I used to really enjoy the shopping and the camaraderie and the fun of the day. Now there are none of those things. It’s just not fun like it was then.” – Diana
“I miss the Toys R Us book that came out on Thanksgiving day. My kids would get so excited to circle everything they wanted ❤️ I just miss the way this world used to be all the way around. 😭“ – Pam
“Black Friday was a girl’s day for us! After lunch, we drug out the sales ads and planned what we were going for and where. Usually pizza and daiquiris that night. Kind of like a slumber party with my mom and sisters. Every year we would say never again lol. Miss my mom and shopping day terribly.” – Anita C.
“Getting the newspaper on Wednesday. Assigning each child an item to get. Getting up at 2:30 a.m… taking turns waiting in line. Then feeling so satisfied when we got all the wanted items. Then treated the kids to a big breakfast at Denny’s…..The rest of the day we’d eat leftovers and watch movies together!! 😭😭😭” – Anita M.
“I totally agree!! I’ve been doing it for over 30 years!! Used to be just me, but now all of my girls go too!! 🥰 It’s beonlinee a tradition!! A day when I have All of my girls together!! And one of my most favorite times!! We do breakfast too!!” – Barbara
“I miss going after a newspaper on thanksgiving morning and planning our Black Friday shopping. I even miss getting up at 3 am to go stand in line for whatever my son just had to have for Christmas.” – Sandie
“It’s just not the same! Even when ads became digital I never looked at them ahead of time. Opening the paper and going through the ads on Thanksgiving day was one of my favorite things. And the excitement of being out all night can’t be beat!” – Christy
“Me and my daughters would make matching shirts. We would bring out the whiteboard and all the sale ads on Thanksgiving after dinner and plan our strategy.” – Daronda
“Weeks and weeks of online shopping take the fun out of it. I used to have a friend that I would go out with on Friday. She would pick me up at 3am and we would hit all the stores we carefully planned out from the Thanksgiving paper flyers. We would be done before noon and go out to lunch. It was so much fun” – Stefanie
“I remember being in line at midnight, full of excited anticipation of what I was going to find. Shopping for hours and stopping for breakfast with friends before going back home and passing out!! Today’s generation will never know the joy of that.” – Ahna
And some of you don’t miss Black Friday so much…
Some of you report loving the new Black Friday, especially if you work in retail or hate to shop. That’s okay, too! If you want to read all the responses to our Black Friday post, you can view them on our Facebook page.
Whether you love or hate the *new* Black Friday, we’d love to hear more of your opinions and memories in the onlinements!
Plan to shop this year? Don’t miss these hot Black Friday deals!
