It's almost Thanksgiving, and you know what that means...

It's almost Black Friday!

*cue celebratory music*

OK, so I know what you're thinking, and it's probably something along the lines of "Black Friday isn't a holiday," or "I really thought you we're going to say Christmas." I know, I know, Black Friday isn't actually a holiday, and if anything, all it's really done is commercialized the actual holiday season. However, that being said, my friends have definitely turned it into a holiday all its own.

Not the commercialized kind, although I guess there's a bit of that in their just given that we're going shopping for some good deals, but when it comes down to it, Black Friday for us isn't really about the sales.

Every year, my best friends from home and I get together the night of Thanksgiving, once all of our holiday festivities are over, and go shopping. We hop in the car together, and drive ridiculously far away on Thanksgiving night, go to malls and department stores that feel bigger than our entire time, and go shop. We shop, but we also talk the entire car ride to the mall. We talk the entire time we're looking at cute shirts, a cute present for our siblings or a nice gift for our parents or grandparents. We joke around, we make memories, and we have fun together that college hasn't let us have in months.

For my friends and I, Black Friday isn't necessarily about the shopping. It's about catching up after a few hard months away from each other and in college. It's about hearing how school has been for everyone, joking and catching up in ways that we haven't been able to do in forever. Black Friday is about the friends, not the deals — those are just a nice bonus.

Last year, my friends and I were out from 9 o'clock at night to 9 o'clock the next morning, and while that sounds like a lot of time to buy a lot of things, I only ended up get two or three Christmas gifts. That's because the gifts, fun as they are to buy, really just weren't my main concern.

I know Black Friday can be an extremely commercialized holiday, but if you look at it just right, it can also be so much more — sort of like a Friendsgiving part two if you will. So until I can come up with a new name for it that describes just why I love it so much, I'll stick with "Black Friday," and say that it really is a pretty nice holiday.