Black (and white!) Friday

Do rubriky Okénka napsal Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky (Pondělí, 28. listopad 2011)

I’m writing this on „Black Friday,” which follows one of the biggest holidays of the year for Americans and marks the beginning of their Christmas shopping season. And while I had a lovely time sharing Thanksgiving dinner with my sister and my niece via Skype video, I awoke this morning feeling dark and ambivalent. Seriously, when was the time the sun came out in Brno?

But it was more than the lack of sunlight that was getting to me. It was the mixed feelings I tend toward during the holiday season. First, there’s the disturbing commercialism. It seems as if there were more Black Friday advertisements than ever on my U.S. television service provider, tempting me to line up and camp out overnight to get one of a handful of huge (1.1 meter) HD televisions for just $200 (about 3400 Kč), an enticement to get people in the door to shop for more.

I realize that it’s an important time for U.S. retailers – Black Friday actually signifies when they are finally out of the „red” (losing money) and „into the black” or making money. It must be difficult to wait for nearly 11 months to realize a profit. But that is not what the holidays should be about.

Luckily, I had the chance to experience a „white” Friday instead. If we’re not getting any sunlight, there might as well be snow, which creates beauty as it covers the trees with a thin white veil and prepares the mountains for skiing, two good reasons to justify gray skies. But more importantly, there was the lighting of the Christmas tree and the opening of the Christmas market at Náměstí Svobody.

And that eased my other holiday-season ambivalence, the feeling of not feeling at „home.” I travel to the United States for the holidays, uprooting myself from my still–new but increasingly familiar home here in Brno. Just as I get used to the sights, smells and sounds of the Christmas market (vánoční punč, Moravian meats, and teenagers making out in one of the few available dark corners) I have to board the Student Agency Bus to the Prague Airport. But hours later, I am greeted by the joyful hugs of my family, which feels amazing.

What else is there to do but embrace this in-between state? Novelist Erica Jong says it best: „Ambivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its own.”