Blog: Black Friday Blues

Several big national retailers are moving up their store openings to get holiday sales moving early. Instead of what has become the traditional open-at-dawn policy on the Friday morning after Thanksgiving, some big names – Target, Macy’s and Best Buy, among them – have announced plans to open at midnight on Thursday.

And so Walmart has said, “Okay, we’re going to open at 10 p.m. on Thursday.” And Toys “R” Us, who makes or breaks its year at Christmastime, saw Walmart’s 10 p.m. and raised it an hour, to 9 p.m.

And pundits are punditing that this is all “too much.” Too much? First of all, a society that devotes its attention to the Kardashians has lost its ability to measure what is “too much.”

But more to the point, all the retailers are trying to do is conduct their business. This is their time, their precious four weeks, to try to salvage their bottom lines, their stock prices, their reputations, maybe their very futures.

That same 24-hour punditocracy will spend the next several weeks on a day-by-day evaluation of how retailers are doing this holiday season. Better than last year? Much better than last year? Worse? Has the free world been saved for another year?

Syndicated columnist Michelle Singletary, who will be among those tracking retail’s performance, has denounced the new hours.

“If the trend continues, Black Friday will become Black Thursday,” she wrote over the weekend. “And that’s not a good thing.”

Not good for whom? Well, her for one thing. “If you’re like me, at midnight on Thanksgiving night you’re either in bed or getting ready for bed after enjoying a day with your family.”

And if you’re not like her? That is, not gainfully employed and well-paid, with plenty of time and money to shop for presents at your leisure? Then maybe the chance to gain some great bargains to put stuff under the tree and in the kids’ stockings is inviting.

People, after all, vote with their feet. If the doors at Toys “R” Us are bursting with eager shoppers at five minutes to nine on Thanksgiving night, I guess it shows it was a good move.

Singletary’s other concern is the workers who have to be in the stores that night. “People, please stay home,” she writes. “Let the folks who stock the shelves, retrieve your shopping carts from the parking lot and ring up your purchases have some peace.”

I’m not indifferent to that concern. On the other hand, there are 14 million Americans who wish they had some peace and a job to go to – Friday, Saturday, any day.