Why Do They Call It ‘Black Friday’? [VIDEO]

As you know, today is "Black Friday", the official start of Christmas shopping and the busiest shoppding day of the year. But why do they call it "Black Friday"? I don't ever hearing that term when I was growing up in Utica.

Let's shed a little light on the subject of "Black Friday", according to and article by Maxwell Strachan on huffingtonpost.com:

"It’s totally understandable if you think the term “Black Friday” is a direct linguistic descendent of “in the black,” accounting jargon for turning a profit. After all, the day after Thanksgiving is now one of the biggest shopping days of the year, an annual delight to retailers hoping to give their bottom lines a nice little boost in the year’s final weeks.

But the truth is that Black Friday owes its name to the Philadelphia Police Department, which did not have profitability in mind. One thing to remember is that, long before the rest of us started calling it Black Friday, retailers hoped to start the holiday shopping season with a bang by offering “can’t miss” deals right after Thanksgiving."