People who are not American: Does your country have a shopping day that is considered the kick-off to the Christmas buying season?

In America we have Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, that is a tradition. Most of the country is off from work and school Thursday for Thanksgiving in late November and Friday also, to make the long long weekend. Thursday is for pigging out (oh, and giving thanks) and Friday bunches of people will be out in the malls shopping. The stores do all sorts of advertising and sales to get you to purchase the items on your Christmas list in their stores. Black Friday is often the biggest day of revenues for many stores, or up near the top anyway. It does matter what they sell obviously. Toy stores, electronics stores, and department stores do huge dollars.

Anything similar in any other country?