By Michael Gryboski

Last week countless Americans observed a ritual practice. They awoke early to engage in great pilgrimages. In the hours of morning where the sun’s rays did not touch, they crowded their temples and performed their acts of devotion. This was an annual occasion for many, a new experience for others. Yet this was not a religious practice, at least not in the literal respect. It was Black Friday, a holy day in the world of commercialization.
It was once said that everything in excess is wrong. What better example than the day following Thanksgiving, where people swarmed numerous retailers with intentions to chaotically shop for a day that will not appear for another month? An occasion that has turned violent, with people being trampled or even killed in feverish drives for lower priced items that will likely be forgotten by the recipient within weeks of opening the carefully wrapped packages.
The blame is hard to place, for each part of American materialism’s day of sacrifice seems to enforce the other. One could blame the stores, the ones who purposely put their best bargains on that one day, rather than other days or over a longer period. It is they who decide to open their doors earlier and earlier, goading the masses into arriving at 3 or 4.
Then again one could blame the customers, who could always stay home and either shop online or shop later in the season. For many stores, their actions are possibly done because they know people will be out in great numbers regardless and to not take advantage would be foolhardy.
One could also blame economists, many of whom have decided that the chaotic scenes of people rushing into malls and caring less for the well-being of those around them is beneficial to our society. The more chaos, the better our situation. Another culpable party could be our material obsessed culture, which mandates the purchase of as much stuff as possible in general and elevates buying the newest items as the highest good.
All this to observe Christmas, a holiday celebrating the birth of a spiritual figure who commanded followers to forsake their possessions and worldly glory.
It is not wrong to purchase gifts for loved ones, nor is it wrong for retailers to offer reduced prices at certain points of the year. Yet to reach this level of obsession, to have reduced the Christmas observance to a big business day, draws less comparison to the humble nativity where Jesus was born and more to a different episode, when Jesus was an adult. Black Friday is not the manger, it is the temple where money changers did their business, turning a house of prayer into a den of thieves. Back then Jesus, enraged by what he saw, proceeded to drive the businessmen out.
Maybe we should drive the commercialization out of these days, focusing less on the Black Friday bargains and more on the sacred meaning of the season and the day of Christmas.