The countdown begins

Here is the 3rd annual survey of Black Friday opening times, based on the newspaper inserts delivered with Thursday's Inquirer.

3AM - 1

4AM - 2

5AM - 9

6AM - 9

7AM - 1

8AM - 1

9AM - 1 (both mattress stores- you'd think people who needed a new mattress would be up extra early)

No hours listed - 8

Bonus survey: Sales described as "Doorbusters" - 8, beating out "Early Bird' which had 4. And "Black Friday" with 3. Black Friday is a term that was originally used to describe a stock market crash in the 19th century, but was first used in this context in the 1960's by the Philadelphia police to describe the heavy traffic in the city that day.

The big change this year is that 5 stores are open on Thanksgiving. I thought that Walmart had announced that they were doing that this year to reduce the Friday morning casualties, but the circular I have says 5AM and says nothing about Thursday. If stores were trying to stop the violence I would think they would stop using terms like "doorbusters."

And finally, in 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving a week earlier to try to give stores more time to sell stuff for Christmas. This disrupted many people's plans and they either ignored the change or celebrated twice, on the original Thanksgiving and the new date, not so affectionately referred to as "Franksgiving."