On Advent and Advertising

A Week of Celebration

I arrived in Milan around midnight the Friday before Thanksgiving, and in my rush to get to my Airbnb (and thanks to my poor mastery of Italian) I took the right bus in the wrong direction, ending up several miles further from the city center. By the time I got into town, it was after one, and I hadn’t eaten. I wandered from one closed restaurant to the next, and eventually made my way to the mammoth Duomo di Milano, brightly lit against the night sky. On the right side of the Piazza Duomo were tourist shops selling overpriced souvenirs. On the left, a line of high-end stores and packed rooftop bars. As I walked past the closed shops —Chanel, Gioielleria Currado, Tiffany & Co —I kept noticing the advertisements in their windows: “Black Friday —sconti fino al 30%.” I saw the same signs everywhere I went in Milan, Rome, and Florence: Black Friday, Black Week, and even Black Month, complete with steep discounts on all the luxury goods you need to make the holidays special. The Italians don’t celebrate American Thanksgiving — a fact my family took advantage of to have an inexpensive European vacation — but to my surprise, they’ve certainly embraced Black Friday.

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