Last week, people across the United States celebrated Thanksgiving with their families. The holiday is a time for people to spend quality time with their loved ones, while the following day, which is widely known as Black Friday, is spent shopping; each store has their own discounts to help kick off the holiday shopping season. Compared to Thanksgiving, which is a relaxing day, Black Friday is very hectic.

Recently, the joy and family-oriented holiday of Thanksgiving has been tainted by Black Friday. For the past couple of years, stores such as Kohl’s, Toys R Us, and Walmart, have been opening on Thanksgiving evening. Their numerous discounts encourage people to leave their families at the dinner table and start shopping early. With that being said, this trend is not something that I agree with, as it is preventing both the customers and workers from being with their loved ones.

Also, stores opening early on Thanksgiving take people’s minds off of the current holiday. The early sales taking place at stores fast forward people to Christmas as they begin to get a head-start on their holiday shopping. In recent years, the media has been starting the Christmas season in November by doing things such as airing holiday commercials on TV and playing Christmas music on the radio. As a result, Thanksgiving has lost some of its importance and is now overpowered by Christmas.

Many other stores feel negatively toward the current trend, and have acted on it. Stores such as Costco, Lowe’s, and Ikea are among many that have taken a stand, and stayed closed on Thanksgiving to let people enjoy their holiday. Also, all of the 520 stores in the Mall of America helped to make a statement by staying closed for Thanksgiving. Hopefully, stores and shopping malls across the country will follow the examples set by these stores and keep Thanksgiving separate from Black Friday in the future.