We don’t need Black Friday and Cyber Monday - we’re Irish

I like a bargain. In fact it could be said I’m a great woman for a bargain, I once abandoned my daughter in a Halloween parade in Spain to sneak into Zara for a look, so no-one loves a bargain more than me.

But this Black Friday s**** is really bugging me! First of all it’s an American concept which is applied to the day after Thanksgiving in a shopping context and marks the unofficial beginning of the Christmas season in America, so I’m told.

WE ARE NOT AMERICAN! We are Irish. Do we want Donald Trump as our President? No, I thought not. Do we want to be known as a nation of people who are generally (note: I said generally) described as being loud, brash and badly dressed? No, No and No!

We are Irish. We are a nation who are generally (note: I said generally) known for being good sports, good drinkers and good craic We have Michael D. Higgins for God’s sake! And Bono. We have Guinness and Kerrygold, Tayto Park and the Ring of Kerry. Let them keep their Disneyland and Vegas, their Thanksgiving and their bloody Black Friday. We don’t want any of it.

And it’s not like it stops there. No sooner had my inbox been flooded with

Black Friday deals, which

I did check out, purely in the interest of research, but it was flooded again on Monday with Cyber

Monday deals.

Cyber Monday???

This one I had never heard of. According to

Wikipedia Cyber Monday is a marketing term for the Monday after the

Thanksgiving holiday in... yes you’ve guessed it –

America.

The term was created by marketing companies to persuade people to shop online.

Therein lies my problem – all these so-called sales are doing is putting pressure on people to buy stuff they don’t need.

Normally I’m ok with that. I buy stuff I don’t need all the time.

But coming so close to Christmas, when many families are under financial pressure as it is, it just adds to the burden.

We’ve only just gotten over Halloween when the chocolate Santas appear, the last thing we need is someone telling us we need to buy a pair of €200 jeans because there’s 20% off.

And what about all those small businesses who are hanging in there by a thread and forced to go into sale early to compete with the big guns? Most of their profits are made in the run up to Christmas. But now they are having to slash at least 20% off everything at the end of November.

Sales belong to two months of the year – January and July. That was when Irish shoppers traditionally got to bag the real bargains. So why not stick to that. Give everybody a chance to make a living and keep a roof over their heads.

So America You can keep your Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein. And we’ll keep Michael D, Bono, Tayto and the January and July sales.

And in case you’re interested, I didn’t buy the €200 jeans!

CYBER MONDAY IS A MARKETING TERM FOR THE MONDAY AFTER THE THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY IN...YES YOU’VE GUESSED IT – AMERICA