It's that time of year again. Temperatures are dropping, leaves are dwindling, the days are shorter and the nights grow longer and colder. Fires roar and families come over and the prep for the holidays has begun. It all kicks off with Halloween. Thanksgiving rolls around, usually much more quickly than anticipated and immediately transitions into Black Friday; a big day preparing us for the next mile in the marathon, Christmas.

In American society today, Black Friday has become a part of the holiday season and has begun to cast a shadow over Thanksgiving.

It has always seemed a little contradictory to me. Black Friday occurs the day after Thanksgiving, a day to focus on what life has given you and be grateful for it. It is a day to remember that even if you have nothing, you have a lot if you have the important things like family and loved ones. It is meant for all of these things and yet, as soon as we finish scarfing down that piece of pumpkin pie that took someone time and effort to make, we rush out the door to make Macy's 30-minute sale on something we probably don't need that desperately.

It's bad enough that this frenzy begins the day after a holiday set aside for being grateful, but now stores are beginning their sales as early as 7 p.m. on Thanksgiving. We rush through our families and take what we have for granted every day simply because we are busy. Our loved ones won't be here forever but there will always be another gorgeous Michael Kors bag season after season.

There is one day a year set aside for appreciating our loved ones and giving thanks. We shouldn't forget about the one day we are given to reflect on and understand the amount of good things we have in our lives. Even this one single day seems to be fading into the background of a materialistic culture.

Black Friday comes with many moral discrepancies. People become vulnerable to being consumed by greed. It seems ridiculous that harmless shopping is such an issue. There is nothing wrong with having a little fun in competition, racing to get that 75% off flat-screen TV from Walmart. But Black Friday, and the animal-like behavior it provokes, has killed before. In 2008, a mob of people was so out of control that they trampled another human being, killing him.

It's disgusting to think that someone had to lose his life so that someone else could achieve a good deal on a materialistic item. It's disgusting to think that people are capable of such selfishness and can so easily revert back to primal behavior. It's frightening to think that human nature steers us in the direction of total disregard for other human beings.

We like to think we are an evolved species. We like to think we are better than animals who claw at each other's throats over food. But when we let greed and competition get the best of us, over something completely unnecessary for survival, and we become even worse than the ravenous and viscous animals who kill for food.

To provide you with a more light-hearted reason for skipping out on the insanity that is Black Friday shopping, Cyber Monday gets you the same, if not better, deals and you don't even have to leave your home and brave the insane crowds.