I remember my first Black Friday experience like it was yesterday. It was the year I had discovered the truth about Santa Claus and was given permission to go out shopping the next day. The only conditions were that I could not complain if I was tired and I was not allowed to venture away from my mom, Nana, or either of my aunts. We spent Thanksgiving night searching through the catalogs planning our strategy for the next day. The reality of it didn't set in for me until the next morning when my mom and I turned the corner and I could see the line of people wrapped around the Circut City building at three in the morning. However, the little, naive me thought the sight was more magical than all the stories about Santa and his reindeer I had been told for my entire life. I kept thinking how nice it was for all those people to stand out in the cold just to get a nice present for someone they loved.

As I got older, I realized Black Friday really wasn't as magical as younger me remembered. In fact, it was the exact opposite. All of the horror stories of people getting in fights in Walmarts all over the country, my mother almost got into one herself just because she happened to walk by a product she wasn't even looking at. It was absolute chaos. There was at least one person who died from being trampled by other shoppers when the doors opened. All of this just for a Playstation or Xbox that would be replaced by a newer model next year. It also didn't help that stores started opening on Thanksgiving night, causing millions of Americans to skip spending time with their relatives just to wait in a line. The magic was gone.

I was lucky. It wasn't until last year, at nineteen, when I had to work my first Black Friday. However, it was technically a Thanksgiving night shift. I spent the entire time running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to keep the product on the shelves before they were emptied. No matter how fast I thought I was, our customers were faster. Their strategies were even better than mine. That experience made me appreciate Black Friday again. Unless you have worked retail at some point in your life, you wouldn't know just how much planning is put into just one day. Even in June companies are planning what they're going to do for it.

I'm not trying to discourage anyone from heading out this Friday, but if you do please remember to be respectful to anyone you may encounter that day. The families of those who choose to go out shopping want their loved one to return home safely. Pushing, shoving, and fighting each other just to get the hottest children's toy on the market right now or the last iPhone 7 in stock is not worth someone's life. As for the employees, please be respectful to them too. If they had a choice they wouldn't be there. Especially if their store is open on Thanksgiving. Most would rather be at home enjoying the turkey one of their family members spent all day cooking, watching the football game, or catching up with relatives they only get to see during this time of year. There's even a chance they are being forced to work a shift longer than their average shift just to ensure there are enough employees in the store to handle all of the customers coming in. Knowing how crazy some customers can be where it comes to sales, there's an even better chance that the sales offered in the store are not even the best deals of the season. With the spike in online shopping and stores being desperate to make what they can in their final quarter, they tend to offer the best deals closer to Christmas.

I'm not saying Black Friday needs to end, just that the magic needs to be restored.