Thanksgiving started, we are told, in 1621 when the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock (which Malcolm X claims we did not land on, but rather landed on us) celebrated their first harvest in the new world by inviting their Native American neighbors to a great feast. The Pilgrims felt blessed with a bountiful harvest and wanted to thank the people of the Wampanoag tribe for teaching them to grow corn (a.k.a. maize) and fish for eel (a now forgotten Thanksgiving staple). Every child learns this story in school, and then we make hand-shaped turkeys and pilgrim hats out of construction paper (It's just what we do in America. Deal with it Canada, ok?). But what they don't teach in school, and what has almost become lost in the annals of history, is what happened the day after the first Thanksgiving: the first Black Friday.

The first Thanksgiving lasted three days, and no one knows what days of the week those were, so we can't definitively say that the day after was a Friday. But we do know that once the feast ended, the Pilgrims and their Native American counterparts engaged in a massive trading of goods. What started out as a partitioning of the leftover food between the two groups quickly turned into a deal-making bonanza. The Wampanoag began by offering a deer, plus an additional deer, for every musket the Pilgrims traded them; the first recorded instance of a "buy one get one free" sale in American history. The Pilgrims were accepting three clams in trade for their nifty hats, down from the usual rate of ten clams, or 70% off! And it didn't stop there, animal skin clothing, brass buckles, corn (a.k.a. maize), squash, fish, and fowl were all vigorously changing hands at far below their normal value, culminating in the biggest deal of the day: the Pilgrims purchased most of what is now Massachusetts for a chest of beads, twenty blankets, ten bonnets, and a goat.

Over the years this post-Thanksgiving haggling grew bigger and evolved from a friendly after dinner exchange between settlers and their tribal neighbors (little known fact: the U.S. acquired most of its land from the Native Americans via Black Friday deals) into the all out consumer extravaganza we know today.  While we no longer trade blankets for land, the deals that are around for this year's Black Friday are almost as good. All City Blue locations will be featuring the following sales:

BUY ONE, GET ONE FOR $1 ON SELECT STYLES OF SNEAKERS AND BOOTS INCLUDING NIKE, TIMBERLAND, PUMA, POLO, ADIDAS, CONVERSE AND OTHERS

30% OFF ALL APPAREL INCLUDING NIKE, PUMA, PARISH, MITCHELL & NESS, AND MANY MORE

2 FOR $30 ON ALL SNAPBACKS AND KNIT HATS

SELECT STYLES OF LEVI'S - 2 FOR $80 AND BUY ONE, GET ONE 50%

PLUS MANY MORE DEALS THAT YOU HAVE TO SEE TO BELIEVE!

So get down to the City Blue nearest you on Black Friday, and honor the oldest and best loved tradition that we have in this great country of ours. Have a happy Thanksgiving, and we'll see you bright and early on Friday morning!