Thanksgiving has always been a cornerstone with American culture; getting together with the family and spend quality time with loved ones over the iconic turkey dinner. This beautiful picture that is associated with the holiday is always contradicted with another Thanksgiving tradition: Black Friday shopping. Multiple department stores and businesses ready their deals to entice potential consumers with these offers; and along with these deals, there have been multiple stories of people getting either injured or killed. Now I'm not here to criticize how a holiday centered around bringing people together is followed by a series of sales; I wanted to share some experiences with Black Friday shopping.

I first heard about it when I was fourteen. My mom's friend came over and went out to stand in line to wait for the Wal-Mart in the next town over, as my sister and I were headed to bed. Over time, I was curious in what going in during a store looking for deals. Most of this came from the bizarre appeal that the media came off as. And four years later, I had my chance to go out. My sister, mother, and I went out and stood in line at Wal-Mart around midnight. The whole time waiting out there, my sister and I alternated between standing outside and waiting in our mom's car to keep warm. When we got in, I kept close to the two of them and wandered around. I don't really remember any deals that stood out to me. When we got back home, the three of us took time to get some rest before catching some more deals at the Hanover Mall in the next town over.

I've gone for two more years and started kicking myself for thinking about Black Friday; because it is rather boring. For the most part, I don't always have the money to get anything when browsing. And despite being up at four at the earliest, I've never been able to fall back asleep regardless of how much it might be needed.

But will I go out this year for Black Friday? Probably, I don't know. It will all depend if I get the chance. Now I've never had too much animosity for the commercial celebration; even though I'm not the target audience, I understand the concept and appeal for it.

And to those of you that enjoy going out Black Friday shopping, I have to give credit where credit is due; you have more willpower than I do to wait out in the cold middle of the night. All I can say is good luck and be careful when going in; no matter how good the deal might be, it's not worth getting injured, arrested, or kicked out of the store.

And to those of you who aren't big on it, enjoy your Thanksgiving with your family.