It looks like the trend of Black Friday moving earlier and earlier and ruining the Thanksgiving holiday for everyone is starting to reverse itself.  I think it’s mostly due to the shift to online purchasing, which allows the big chains to snag the dollars on Thursday without having to open their stores.  This saves them labor dollars, but also has the side benefit of happy employees who aren’t torn away from their families to watch hordes of people fight over a television set.

I won’t have to work Black Friday this year thankfully but you’re not going to find me waiting in line at Walmart or Best Buy either.  If anything I’ll be comfy in my living room on Amazon, but most likely will wait until Cyber Monday anyway.  7 deaths and 98 injuries on Black Friday?  I’m going to pass on that excitement, thank you very much.

For several years now, corporations in their unending search for higher profits, along with their media, have been increasingly forcing the culture of “Black Friday” shopping on American consumers. We’re all familiar with the custom — after a restful day of turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and football-watching with family, we’re expected to get up before sunrise and join the masses for a dreadful day of waiting in traffic, standing in lines, and elbowing other shoppers to save a few bucks on some gadgets we could probably do without.

Some have taken this tradition a little too seriously, going as far as camping out in front of stores to grab up the best deals as soon as workers put them on the shelf and unlock the doors. A few times, this has led to workers getting buried alive and killed, trampled under a sea of rushing feet. the site Black Friday Death Count has tallied a total of 7 deaths and 98 injuries of workers and shoppers as a result of Black Friday mayhem.

Stores have even encouraged this behavior and taken it a step further, by starting Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving Day. While thrifty shoppers line up to buy cheap goods, this means that these store workers are spending the day herding shoppers into lines, rather than enjoying time with their families.

Thanks to labor411.org, there are now two lists of importance to Black Friday shoppers — the 20 chain stores that are making workers clock in during the Thanksgiving holiday, and the 24 chain stores that are mercifully closing their doors on Thanksgiving.

So if you must take part in shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, make sure you’re discerning about which stores get your money. And make sure you same some for Small Business Saturday, and help your local economies flourish.

24 chain stores not opening on Thanksgiving:

1. Crate and Barrel

2. TJ Maxx

3. Barnes and Noble

4. Bed Bath and Beyond

5. BJ’s

6. Costco

7. Dillards

8. Home Depot

9. Home Goods

10. Jo Ann Fabrics

12. Marshall’s

13. Nordstrom

14. P.C. Rochard and Son

15. Pier One

16. Publix

17. Radio Shack

18. Sur La Table

19. Sam’s Club

20. DSW shoes

21. Gamestop

22. Staples

23. Neiman Marcus

24. Burlington Coat Factory

 

20 Chain stores staying open on Thanksgiving:

1. Best Buy

2. Kohl’s

3. Walmart

4. Target

5. K-mart

6. JCPenney

7. Toys R Us

8. Sears

9. Macy’s

10. Michael’s

11. Big Lots

12. Shoe Carnival

13. Old Navy

14. Family Dollar

15. Bass Pro Shops

16. Dollar General

17. Victoria’s Secret

18. Office Depot

19. Office Max

20. Dick’s Sporting Goods