So it's a bit past Boxing Day now and it's quite possible I mentioned this last year, too, but I haven't got another fascinating tidbit besides extensive notes on cricket I haven't got the wherewithal to make witty tonight. Anyway, the deal with Boxing Day is that it's actually a holiday here -- you know, something more than that funny little bit of writing that always appears on calendars on December 26th that no one ever knows anything about and kind of suspects is British if anything besides an odd typo someone added years ago and no one's worked out how to remove from the universal calendar template. But in Australia it's actually a day off work -- much along the lines of Black Friday* after Thanksgiving -- a general "we know no one's actually up for doing anything the day after a major holiday so let's just all call it quits and not even bother" sort of holiday. It's fantastic, except that Coles was closed when I realized my milk had gone sour over the two (two!) days I'd left it home alone (and it didn't even expire until the 30th! and there was plenty left! I'm convinced milk goes off here faster than it does at home, but I still haven't worked out why).
The other thing about Boxing Day is that it's the start of the famous Sydney to Hobart yacht race, which is kind of cool. I got to watch with binoculars from the roof of my friend's apartment building -- see photos under the actual day, though the zoom on the camera doesn't really work, alas.
Anyway, happy belated Boxing Day!
*I meant to blog about that, too -- so many Australians were asking me about Black Friday this year. It seems that no one had really thought about it much before, but this year the message leaked out to Australia that Americans do something crazy like shop or something on a certain Friday, but why do they call it Black? Its relation to Thanksgiving is tenuous in the Australian mind at best, but they are very curious about it. For anyone uniformed reading, it's basically the day after Thanksgiving when the whole country has off work and there are huge, huge, huge sales and it's a complete zoo to do any shopping, but that doesn't really stop half the country from trying.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
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5 comments:
Yes, but why is it called black?
Mm, not entirely sure. Possibly because it's just a write-off in terms of work/anything productive ... possibly a marketing ploy dreamed up by the stores ...
It is called Black Friday because the amount of sales put the stores "in the black" - meaning making more than they pay out (or the opposite of being "in the red"). No debt, much profit, the books will balance for the year due to one huge day of brisk purchasing.
Indeed - 'black' Friday for the accounting term - I've heard that most USA retailers don't actually start making a profit for the financial year until that day and they rely on the sales between then and Christmas to keep them 'in the black'.
Kim - I'd be checking your fridge temp. It's been a long time since I dealt with dairy (soy lasts a long time, even if one forgets and leaves it on the bench for half a day) but if you bought it 'fresh' and it was only two days old, in the fridge then I'd suggest that either your area had a power outage or your fridge is dodgy.
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