Black Friday is not an official holiday in the United
States.
Black Friday is a shopping day for a combination of reasons.
As the first day after the last major holiday before Christmas, it marks the
unofficial beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Additionally, many
employers give their employees the day off as part of the Thanksgiving holiday
weekend. In order to take advantage of this, virtually all retailers in the
country, big and small, offer various sales, including limited amounts of
"doorbuster" items, to entice traffic.
In Mexico, Black Friday was the inspiration for the
government and retail industry to create an annual weekend of discounts and
extended credit terms.
In Australia, the term Black Friday refers not to shopping
at all but to the devastating Black Friday bushfires that occurred in Victoria
in 1938-39. Only recently has it been promoted as a shopping day in Australia
by in-store and online retailers. In 2011.
