Traditionally called “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving has become one of the nation’s largest shopping days.

It is not considered an official holiday of the United States, however, most non-retail employees and schools have the day off. This, in itself, only increases the number of shoppers on Black Friday.

Black Friday received its name, in the 1960’s, to kickoff the holiday shopping season. Back then, accounting records used to be counted by hand and red indicated a loss, while black indicated a profit.

“Black” refers to stores moving from losing money, to gaining a profit.

Over the years, this national event became more and more popular. More stores started to give sales, discounts and promotions for shopping on that specific Friday.

Black Friday benefits both the businesses and the people, bringing in more customers and profit to the businesses, and huge savings and early Christmas shopping for the people.

As Black Friday became a normal shopping extravaganza the day after Thanksgiving, stores began to think more cleverly.

Stores now open a lot earlier than normal; people even camp outside for the best deal on that new play station that just came out.

After a while, some people thought the madness of rushing to eat your Thanksgiving family dinner just to get a good spot in a line to sleep outside in a shopping center in the freezing cold with strangers for the possibility of getting a high-demand discounted item was just not worth it.

Now, more and more stores are beginning to offer their deals online, making it much more convenient to customers, and less of a hassle when a certain location of a store runs out of the item you want to buy.