Copyright The Oregonian
The American holiday of Thanksgiving is not only a day to gather with family and friends to feast and give thanks, but also a demarcation line for another celebrated event: the holiday shopping season. No sooner will Thanksgiving end on Thursday than Black Friday will begin the next morning. For 2025, Thanksgiving falls on Nov. 27, which is among the latest dates it can be on the November calendar, and Black Friday will be on Nov. 28. Since 1942, the United States has celebrated Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November, meaning it can be as early as Nov. 22 or as late as Nov. 28. For decades before that, dating to the time of President Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiving was celebrated on the last Thursday in November. The distinction is a small one, since under the previous system the holiday could have been anywhere from Nov. 24-30. But the change came because President Franklin D. Roosevelt hoped that the earlier Thanksgiving would be good for American business by offering more shopping days before Christmas. Roosevelt declared Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday in November in 1939, at a time when the country was still mired in the Great Depression, and by 1942 Congress had passed a law to formalize that timing. In recent decades, the day after Thanksgiving has become another kind of American holiday, with Black Friday and its big discount offerings from retailers. Black Friday is the nation’s biggest shopping day, and the term has been widely used since the 1980s. It might sound negative, but Black Friday provides such a boost for businesses that they can go from “in the red” (loss) to “in the black” (profit). The shopping frenzy runs through the weekend at many stores and then morphs into Cyber Monday, the online shopping event that comes three days later. Cyber Monday, which debuted in 2005, will happen on Dec. 1 this year. So, to recap: On Thanksgiving Americans stuff themselves, on Black Friday they buy stuff and on Cyber Monday they buy stuff to be delivered. And it all starts with the fourth — not last — Thursday in November.
