“Black Friday,” of course, refers to the Friday after Thanksgiving, when holiday shoppers fill the retail stores and buy up so many items that it helps the various retailers reach profitability for the year, moving from red ink (i.e., losses) into black ink (i.e., profits) on their books. As I grew older, I came to realize the difference between the terms (aided in part by a job I took as a Macy’s stockboy one year, a job from which I resigned on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving after hearing horror stories from veterans of previous “Black Fridays”).

This year, though, the term “Black Friday” brings to mind those dreaded terms about the Crash of ‘29. Not only are today’s stock markets way down for the year, but retailers from Kohl’s and Lowe’s to Sears, KB Toys, and a host of others are so concerned about the huge drop in consumer spending that they’re offering all sorts of discounts, substantially reducing their profit margins on discounted items. Their goal is to make up for the price difference by selling larger quantities, but that may be a hard goal to achieve this year.

The National Retail Federation (NRF) estimates that up to 128 million people could go shopping this weekend, which is a lot of people but still seven million fewer than they estimated would be shopping a year ago.

“Retailers realize that low prices will get consumers into stores this holiday season, and this could be the most heavily promotional Black Friday in history,” according to NRF President and CEO Tracy Mullin. “Shoppers who held off buying a DVD player or winter coat over the last few months will find that prices may literally be too good to pass up.”

So … will you/did you find some prices “literally too good to pass up” this Black Friday, or are you sticking to a tight holiday budget this year?