This year, Black Friday is occurring even earlier than any year before. Stores like Kmart will open at 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving, Target will open its doors at 6 p.m., and Old Navy will open at 4 p.m. What ever happened to Thanksgiving, the holiday for giving thanks and appreciating for what one has? Thanksgiving is supposed to be the day when people spend quality time with their family and eat a traditional dinner with their loved ones. However, with numerous stores opening during dinnertime, people may want to rush dinner, so they can sprint to the stores.

Some stores give shoppers incentives to wait in the long lines to shop. For example, Old Navy advertises that you could become a millionaire overnight when you stop by on Black Friday. The first 100 customers to line up in one of the more than 800 Old Navy stores at 4 p.m. on Thanksgiving will receive a game card, equipped with the chance to win $1 million. In addition, H&M is doing something similar by giving the first 100 shoppers the chance to win scratch-off prizes that could be valued up to $300.

Moreover, Target feels that their workers love to work during the holidays because it fills them with joy. “It’s a fun night to be out in the stores,” and managers usually order food for employees, says Jenna Reck, a spokeswoman for Target. She also claims that Target wants to “fill as many positions as [they] can with volunteers.” Workers who work on Thanksgiving and Black Friday get paid one and a half times their usual hourly rate. People would actually work on Thanksgiving and Black Friday just so they can make more money, which reveals how the value of Thanksgiving is being taken away.

Roshani Shah (11) is not going Black Friday shopping this year; she admits, “Thanksgiving is supposed to be an event for the whole family to get together and make memories, but these days people get so fixed on materialistic items they don’t realize that they are missing out on quality time with their family they may never get again.” Deborah You (11) agrees with Roshani that “Black Friday takes away from Thanksgiving because instead of focusing on family and giving thanks, [one] focuses on deals for [himself].” Debra admits there is no way she will be involved in this crazy shopping tradition because she wants to sleep in.