Friday 13th Black Friday

Today is Black Friday, known as Friday the 13^th, and this year there are two Friday the 13^th and the next one occurs on 13^th October 2023. There is a least one

Friday the 13^th each year and can happen up to three times in a year. If the month starts on a Sunday, there will be a Friday the 13^th.

Superstitions and bad luck is often associated with the number 13 and going back in history Friday 13^th has been deemed a day for caution and avoiding situations which may bring bad luck. Friday 13^th March 2020 is a date that reminds many of the start of the Covid-19 world pandemic. The time when the world started to close down to stop the spread of the Coronavirus.

Checking out the web pages there is discussions of the last supper, the burning of Knights Templers, or Norse mythology regarding the Norse God Loki. Quite

a few of today’s skyscrapers and hotels don’t have 13th floors or a room 13. I also read that there are more than 60 million people worldwide have a phobia of Friday the 13th to varying degrees. I remember the 1980s horror movies “Friday the 13^th”, these were filled with terror and violence which must also affect the way many think about Black Friday.

Other superstitions many of us grew up with or were given as advice, do not open an umbrella inside your house or walk under a ladder. Breaking a mirror will give you seven years bad luck. These are superstitions, or a belief that something bad will happen even if there is no reason to think that it will.

Many of those who were born on Friday the 13th, or whose birthdays fall on the 13th and occasionally occur on a Friday, consider themselves immune to any negative repercussions.

In recent years “Black Friday” is the name of retail and online sales, which are held on the Friday after USA Thanksgiving Day, which signals the start of the Christmas shopping season.

I hope everyone has a safe Friday the 13^th, the next Black Friday is later in the year on the 13^th October 2023.

Betty Matthews

January 2023