In the opening track to their now-classic 1983 album, War, Irish rock band U2 sang about “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”
I can’t believe the news today
Oh, I can’t close my eyes and make it go away
…
Broken bottles under children’s feet
Bodies strewn across the dead-end street
But I won’t heed the battle call
It puts my back up, puts my back up against the wall
Bono was supposedly singing about the “Bloody Sunday” of January 20, 1972, in which 26 unarmed protesters were shot by British troops in Bogside in Derry, Northern Ireland.
That “Bloody Sunday” certainly inspired U2’s lyrics, but there have been many others throughout history, including at least three other Irish Bloody Sundays. Poland has had three. England, Canada, and the United States each have had two. All of them involved violence, usually aimed at protesters by state authorities.
Even in 1983, if you had asked a random person, “What is ‘Black Friday’?” they would probably have assumed a similar connotation. Go back far enough, and there have been plenty of Black Fridays that involved violence against protesters, usually during labor strikes.
These days, though, Black Friday is no cousin to Bloody Sunday. Since the 1980s, the term caught on around the U.S. to refer to the Friday after Thanksgiving, in which people who don’t work retail usually have the day off, and retailers post their biggest sales of the year to entice Christmas shoppers to patronize them. Technically, the ensuing traffic was the inspiration for this use of the noir phrase.
As a result, Black Friday has come to be synonymous with consumerism and the commercialization of Christmas, perhaps best captured by the 1996 semi-classic Jingle All the Way, starring action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger and accomplished comedian Sinbad, who scour New York City to find the last available Turbo Man doll for their kids. In one scene, the store employees laugh at the dad duo for waiting till the last minute to find the sought-for toy. In response, an enraged Arnold lifts the two salesmen up off the ground at the same time and demands through gritted teeth, “Where’s your Christmas spirit?”
On rare occasions, violence (though rarely fatal) has broken out over the newest gizmo or hot deal. At Black Friday’s height, stores started opening late Thursday night, thus infecting the wholesome holiday of Thanksgiving, when happy families enjoy Lions football together and dysfunctional families routinely air their grievances and insensitive political opinions.
But this year I noticed something different. Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Friday has been less hyped. Combined with the growth of online shopping, it just ain’t what it used to be. In fact, I went shopping for some last-minute Thanksgiving items and saw “Black Friday” deals already in effect—before Thanksgiving and not on a Friday. But now lines weren’t long, and no one was panicking. It was as if the retailers had said, “Oh, I guess we need to do that thing this week. What was it? ‘Black Tuesday’? No? ‘Black Friday’?!? Well, let’s start the deals on Tuesday anyway. It doesn’t really matter anymore.”
None of this is to minimize the problem of consumerism or the commercialization of Christmas. I’m constantly annoyed, grinch-like, at all the celebrating before December 25. Liturgically, we have 12 days of Christmas! But they don’t start until, well, Christmas. The 40 days leading up to Christmas constitute Advent, traditionally a time of fasting and almsgiving, prayerfully anticipating the coming of Christ, not pumpkin pie, eggnog, and holiday parties! Bah humbug!
All that stuff can truly go too far, but I’ve drawn out this contrast between Bloody Sunday and Black Friday to emphasize how ridiculous our fretting over the latter has been. People being murdered by officers of the state meant to protect them while protesting for better working conditions, religious liberty, or self-government deserves an ominous monicker like “Bloody Sunday.” People being rude over sweet holiday deals does not. Indeed, while sometimes vicious, usually the goal of Black Friday shopping is to buy gifts for other people for Christmas. Sure, giving should be more joyful, but still—isn’t all this generosity still a good thing?
In his 2015 monograph for the Acton Institute, The Cure for Consumerism, Fr. Gregory Jensen helps us put these phenomena in perspective:
Now, when Christians (at least in North America) are not violently persecuted, we find that the Church … often appears weak and frail. Should we then conclude that political and economic freedoms are inherently corrosive, that the Church can thrive in all situations except liberty? Is American culture really more destructive to the Church than the cruelties of the Roman, Ottoman, or Soviet empires? If not, is it rather that we have failed to discern properly the evangelical and pastoral opportunity afforded by modernity in general and the free market in particular?
Fr. Gregory recommends that we instead work on our hearts though ascetic practices. The traditional asceticism of Advent can help here, but that doesn’t give me justification to be a grinch about it.
Christian asceticism is a means to an end—virtue and communion with God—and not an end in itself. More than one story from the Desert Fathers, the first Christian monks in ancient Egypt, involve an elder scandalizing his disciples by entertaining guests with wine during a fast. Why? Because even for the most austere Christian ascetics, hospitality is more important than their discipline. As St. Paul exhorts his readers, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:13). So, too, whether you shop on Black Friday or from the comfort of your own home online, “Do all to the glory of God.”
Is someone throwing a Christmas party before Christmas? Maybe just be happy about it. How about that? Is someone out shopping for great Christmas deals? Maybe consider that they’re doing so because they love someone and want to shower that loved one with gifts. I wonder if anyone in ancient Babylon fretted over the Magis’ last-minute shopping for the first Christmas, too.
Maybe in addition to our justified complaints over commercialism, we should also offer a prayer of thanksgiving that Black Friday isn’t Bloody Sunday. What a great privilege it is to live in a society where the former is merely fretted over and the latter mercifully rare. That’s a gift for which we should all be grateful this Christmas.
Christ is born! Let us glorify him!
