Black Friday used to be so much fun. Stores opening at midnight or in the wee hours of the morning the day after Thanksgiving with great deals. At least that was what Black Friday was like up until a few years ago. Now stores are opening earlier and earlier on Thanksgiving day begging the question, can we even call it Black Friday anymore since it is overtaking both Thursday and Friday?

Thanksgiving is a holiday to spend surrounded by family and friends enjoying each others company and enjoying a lot of good food. When family members are pulled away from a holiday because of either having to go to work for Black Friday or spend the holiday waiting around in some store, it is just not okay. Retail workers should not have to leave a holiday dinner early or not even be able to attend one at all because people think that shopping is more important than family. And family members should not be blowing off the family holiday to wait in a store all day for some trivial item, this happened a lot two years ago when the PlayStation 4 was released on Black Friday and people waited all Thanksgiving day in stores for tickets to buy the video game console.

What does this say about how our societies values have changed over the last decades? Obviously, we are valuing shopping and corporate advertisement lures over holidays, family, and tradition. Then everyone goes and complains about how we have lost our core values, how the younger generations care more about material and trivial things than what should actually matter. If we do not like what is happening then we need to change things. Small things, like a mass amount of people refusing to go out shopping before a certain time on Thanksgiving day, will make a huge difference to the corporate companies once they receive their all important figures breakdown. However, the sad reality is that it is very unlikely that a mass amount of people will choose to do the right and moral thing and opt to do the selfish thing and shop on the holiday.

Several shopping centers, the largest and most prominent being the Mall of America, have tried to solve the issue this year by refusing to open its doors until midnight and thus giving all its employees Thanksgiving to spend with their families before coming to work. Then there are companies like Macy’s who are opening their doors this year at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving, closing at midnight and then reopening at 5 a.m. If more companies followed the model being set by the Mall of America, the issue could be resolved, but corporate America is a greedy, entity and they know they can lure the shoppers into ditching the holiday to come to their store instead.

As someone who loves Black Friday and how it used to be, and also loves the tradition of the holidays, I implore you to take a stand for Thanksgiving. Show corporate America that we are a society of strong morals and values who cannot be swayed by advertisements into skipping out on the holiday. Show corporate America that their retail employees deserve to be able to spend the holiday at home having dinner with their family and friends. And to our younger generations, show that you do believe in more than just the material things that life has to offer. Take action and demand that Black Friday goes back to the way it used to be, that Black Friday stays on Friday and Thanksgiving stays all day Thursday. Separate the two days, because they are different and should not be made to be one.