Grey Thursday Shopping?

                Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Thanksgiving is a holiday where a lot of families gather and spend time with one another. Black Friday is always the day after Thanksgiving. Many stores open up early and have many great sales. However, as years go on and on black Friday is becoming bigger and bigger. Stores are opening up earlier and earlier. Stores have been opening up before midnight. This year, it is a little different. Stores are going to be open on Thanksgiving Day. People are referring to this as “Grey Thursday.” It almost seems as though shopping is becoming more important than the holiday itself. Cyber Monday is also a new thing where stores offer a lot of sales on their websites.

                How are the consumers feeling about this? A vote on The Jersey Journals website shows 94.61% of people think malls should remain closed on Thanksgiving and 5.39% would want them to be open. What about employees, don’t they want to be spending time with their families rather than working? Sure, some jobs require employees to work on holidays, like police officers, nurses, doctors, etc. But why do retail workers need to be working on a holiday? If stores open on early on Friday it makes no difference than if they open on Thursday. If anything, more people are likely to go.

                The problem is that people want good deals and sales, so they may go out on thanksgiving, not because they want to, but because they want to save money. There is not many days of the year where everyone in a family is able to get together. It is not more important to go shopping than to spend a holiday with family. Sure material things are nice, but doesn’t there come a point where we have gone too far?