It's the term that's used for the Friday following Thanksgiving, Buddy, the much-ballyhooed most busy shopping day of the year. I think it gets its name from it being the shopping day the supposedly puts retailers in the black (as in black ink for profits as opposed to red ink for losses). This season retailers are very frightened about today's profits. Normally a good Black Friday signals a good holiday shopping season. The mortgage lending crisis in this country, though, combined with gas/seasonal oil prices and a fair degree of political uncertainty, are threatening to tip us over the edge into an economic recession. That's why all the retailers were pushing Christmas this year practically before Halloween had even arrived.