Black Friday was a must-do tradition for Emma Shetler and her husband John for about eight years.

The Shetlers would look through newspaper ads and scour the internet for the best Black Friday deals in search of gifts – mostly for their daughter. Then, after dinner and a quick nap on Thanksgiving, they would venture out to Walmart, Best Buy and Kmart and come back completely stocked.

"We would (buy gifts) for people we normally wouldn't get for because of the doorbusters. They'd have candles for $2, so I would grab my neighbor a candle," Emma Shetler said. "But now the neighbor is not getting a candle, sorry."

Things changed for the Shetlers, as they have for so many others in the past two-plus years after COVID-19 hit. The pandemic not only started the widespread practice of major retail stores shutting their doors completely on Thanksgiving, but it also enhanced the popularity of online shopping, which pushed people away from traditional same-day doorbusters and toward weeks-long digital deals.

Now, Shetler said she looks online around the holidays to see what deals she can still get. Discounts aren't what they used to be, she said, and the economy has changed. To create more of a price buffer, she's started shopping year-round.

"That's what my mom used to do, and I'd say, 'You're crazy,' but my daughter has had presents hidden" away, she said.

Even though the concept of Black Friday itself has changed significantly since retailers introduced it into the lexicon as a shopping holiday sometime in the 1980s, shopping on or around Thanksgiving remains a tradition for many, and a fond memory for others.

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Black Friday once tied to malls

The story of Black Friday runs parallel to the discourse surrounding shopping malls in the last half of the 20th century. Just as suburban shopping malls have changed, Black Friday is not what it used to be. That makes some people sad, but at the same time comfortable in the nostalgia of those good memories – because they were really, really good.

Growing up in Portland, Oregon, Andrea Haynes would get up around 4 a.m. on Black Friday to hit Fred Meyer. She remembers coffee and little donut holes at the stores, treats for people who went through the trouble of showing up early.

She also remembers the socks. It was half-off socks in those days – Haynes and her family would buy fuzzy footwear for everyone for the entire year on that one day. She remembers Disney socks from the movies that came out when she was a kid, like "Tarzan" and "Atlantis: The Lost Empire."

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For Haynes' family, Black Friday shopping began with the practice of extreme couponing that started with her great-grandmother. She has now turned that into a business, Haynes Finds of Bradenton, where she sells and gives away things she acquires through couponing or donations.

"Growing up as a kid, your parents don't want you to know they're struggling. Even though they owned a home, they were living paycheck to paycheck," she said. "(Couponing) helped (my mom) have money to take us on trips. Not only was she getting items, but making money off of it. It was a win-win for her."

It's clear that Black Friday was at some point a great source of joy for a lot of people. But there's still a big portion of the population that never understood what the fuss was all about.

In an informal survey of people in the "Sarasota Word of Mouth" Facebook group several weeks ago, there were a lot of comments about memories of Black Fridays past. But there was also plenty of "it's not worth it" views, and even some "I stay as far from it as possible."

Nika Booth doesn't get the appeal. A recent Sarasota transplant from Santa Clarita, California, Booth said she's gone shopping for regular groceries on Black Fridays, just to get a front-row seat to the social experiment.

"People are digging through bins, buying stuff on sale they would never buy normally, but it’s suddenly very important," she said. "Lines and lines of a very limited number of big ticket items. It's fascinating to watch."

Shetler said the holiday she used to love has turned into something she no longer recognizes. It's a little bit like the novel "The Warehouse," which she recently read, where much of the economy is ruled by a giant tech company. In the book, much of the population lives, works, eats and plays inside of an Amazon-like structure.

"Amazon is running it out, big box retailers are struggling to hold on. That's why they're doing memberships and stuff like that," she said. "We’re not going to go back, I think, and I hate it. It was such tradition for so many people."

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Stories of Black Fridays past in Sarasota