Saving your life from Black Friday

We are used to hearing about Black Friday crazy — the middle-of-the-night long lines that broke into brawls when big box stores opened their doors. I remember my sweet, demure sister-in-law on a Black Friday a few decades ago. She wasn’t all that into shopping — and particularly wasn’t a Black Friday cuckoo like many of us.  Little did she know she’d be getting into a riot the day she decided her daughter’s Christmas wouldn’t be whole without a Cabbage Patch doll. So on Black Friday, she got up in the wee hours, trekked 20 miles into town, and was successful!  She got her hands on a coveted Cabbage Patch named Owen.  Yes.  Mission accomplished.  Life was good. 

Until someone had the audacity to try snatching Owen out of her shopping cart.  Dione is small but she is mighty.  Suffice it to say, the thief didn’t get away with it.

Retailers actually call those days the Cabbage Patch Riot of 1983. I would say it was the day that Thanksgiving went from a four-day weekend to a single day of gratefulness.  With great deals on all your dreams, who has time to sit around being grateful?  For a couple decades, we got used to hearing about mobs fighting it out for Tickle Me Elmos (1996), Furbys and Beanie Babies (1998).  TVs and electronics which were likely loss leaders were also in play. Remember the 2010 Target stampede in Buffalo, New York?  A man was trampled after he lost his balance when, at 4AM, the store opened. In 2011 in Los Angeles, a woman pepper-sprayed the competition to get at a video game console.  That was the same year a man collapsed in a Target store in South Charleston, West Virginia.  Shoppers were so intent on their pursuits that they ignored him until some sympathetic nurse came to his rescue.  But in 2008, when a Long Island, NY opened, the crowd broke down the doors.  A 34-year-old employee was trampled to death.  

According to Website Black Friday Death Count, 11 people have died and 108 have been injured by Black Friday violence. While there are still traces of that kind of violence associated with this day, the advent of online shopping — and promotions that begin the day after Halloween — have changed how America responds to Black Friday.

So, too has Shop Local Saturday, AKA Small Business Saturday, which was started by retailers in 2010 by American Express.  I like the idea — and believe that a little online shopping on Black Friday, coupled with a lot of shopping on Small Business Saturday, represents a kinder, more gracious approach that may not even risk your life or safety.

On this Small Business Saturday, remember you can score a deal right on callenkropp.com!  Go to my callenkropp.com/contact page and sign up for the original canvas by talented Illustrator Emily Hagen from Ozzy Ox:  Toy Trauma.  It is a beautiful but gentle reminder to kids to pick up their toys. No purchase required—and it’s quick and easy to enter.  The drawing will be held tomorrow (Sat, Nov 30) and the winner will be announced by the end of December 1.  No purchase required.

But, if you have kids on your shopping list, treat them to a set of Ozzy Ox books on Small Business Saturday! You can get them at The Melted Crayon and The Story Nook in Jamestown, or Words To Live By Bookstore in Moorhead and First Avenue Market in Fargo. I promise: you won’t even have to wear body armor!