Target Respects the Turkey!

Great job Target!

CNN - Target says it will never open on Thanksgiving again

"What started as a temporary measure driven by the pandemic is now our new standard," Target CEO Brian Cornell said in a note to employees.

Big money on Halloween

As stores are getting ready to line up their Christmas displays to make all that holiday money, hopefully they are paying attention to the other holidays too.

A report just came out saying a whole bunch of people are going to be spending a whole bunch of money on Halloween stuff.

Halloween spending slated to hit record $9.1 billion, NRF says - CNBC.com

Mall of America Closed on Thanksgiving!

Halloween is over, and the Thanksgiving Season has begun!

Some great news has come from the Mall of America, where they have decided to close their doors on Thanksgiving Day to allow their workers to stay home with their families.

"We’ve been talking about this for months, looking at the numbers, looking at the pros and the cons,” said Jill Renslow, the mall’s senior vice president of marketing and business development. “We’re excited to give this day back to our employees so they can celebrate with their families."

Great work Mall of America!
Hopefully many other stores will follow suit, and Respect The Turkey!

Full article over at: Star Tribune: Mall of America takes bold stand by closing on Thanksgiving

Stores staying closed on Thanskgiving 2015

Hopefully everyone has their turkeys thawing in the freezer, and people are making plans to celebrate a day to give thanks for they have.

We all know black Friday is right after Thanksgiving where people jump right into the mad dash to buy things, and some retailers over the past few years have even been open for Thanksgiving shopping sales.

Thankfully some stores have come out now to say that they will not be open for shopping, so their employees can spend the day at home with their families.

TheBlackFriday.com has a good running list of stores that will be CLOSED on Thanskgiving Day.

If you're going out Friday, support the stores that support a day of thanks before shopping!

Stores Staying Closed on Thanskgiving Day

Don't shortchange Thanksgiving

Over at the Pensacola News Journal (pnj.com) writer Troy Moon has a great post about respecting Thanksgiving and fighting the Christmas creep.

Moon: Don't shortchange Thanksgiving

What we really need to be concerned about is the War on Thanksgiving, being waged by Christmas.

Black Friday is bad enough. But last year, the Christmas holiday season even swallowed Thanksgiving, to me, the best holiday of them all. A holiday built around family, friends, food and feasting. A day to count your blessings and enjoy the company of those you love most. But then again, some of us love the appliance aisle at the box store most of all.

Great to have another voice working to help keep the Thanksgiving holiday alive!

Check out the whole article over at pnj.com:
Moon: Don't shortchange Thanksgiving

Quartz Christmas Creep Calculator

Quartz news site has made a graph to extrapolate the future date of when the Christmas Creep will hit for years to come.

Apparently in London they are turning on the Christmas lights on November 1st, far earlier than they have in the past.

Taking that into account, there will be Christmas in July in our future some day.

Respect the turkey!

Read the whole article over at qz.com:

How long before we see Santa in July? Introducing Quartz’s Christmas Creep Calculator

Stores Closed on Thanksgiving

Quite a few stores are now joining the march to stay closed on Thanksgiving!

Thanks to some successful facebook campaigns like Say No To Shopping on Thanksgiving and the popular pledge badge that's been going around, stores are starting to listen!



Great to see such a community supporting the retail workers and helping them get a well deserved day off.

Over at Forbes they are compiling a running list:

Forbes: Costco, Publix Lead Charge As Stores Refuse To Open On Thanksgiving Day

Here's the list from the Forbes article. Respect the Turkey! :)

American Girl
Barnes & Noble
Bed
Bath and Beyond
BJ’s Wholesale Club
Burlington Coat Factory
Costco
Crate & Barrel
Dillard’s
DSW
GameStop
Hobby Lobby
HomeGoods
Home Depot
Jo Ann Fabrics
Lowe’s
Marshalls
Nordstrom
Petco
Pier 1
Publix
RadioShack
Sam’s Club
Sur La Table
Talbots
T.J. Maxx

Christmas coming earlier: More retailers now count season's length in months, not weeks

Over at the Omaha World Herald, writer Barbara Soderlin has yet another article in the news about stores opening earlier this year.


(from: omaha.com - Christmas coming earlier: More retailers now count season's length in months, not weeks

Probably the best line from the article:

What’s creepier than all the Halloween masks on display?

The “Christmas creep” shoppers will see as holiday promotions and sales arrive in stores even earlier this year.

(from: omaha.com - Christmas coming earlier: More retailers now count season's length in months, not weeks

Read the rest of Barbara's article here.

You can follow her on Twitter at @barbarasoderlin, and as always we're at @respectturkey.

WSJ: Expect Retailers to Open Even Earlier This Thanksgiving

Andria Cheng at the Wall Street Journal wrote up an article about how retailers are expected to be open for a full day of shopping on Thanksgiving Day.

While retailers aren’t expected to announce any special Thanksgiving hours until the second half of October or into November, “it’s inevitable to see them open all day or even earlier than last year,” Joel Bines, managing director and co-leader of consulting firm AlixPartners’ retail practice, said in an interview.

(from: WSJ: Expect Retailers to Open Even Earlier This Thanksgiving)

Even though retailers are planning to make people work on Thanksgiving Day, it may not even do much to boost their sales.

To be sure, opening early on Thanksgiving may do little more than ruin employees’ turkey feasts.

Last year, retailers from Wal-Mart and Best Buy to Macy's and J.C. Penney opened stores or kicked off sales events earlier on Thanksgiving. Still, record Black Friday weekend sales didn’t salvage what turned out to be a disappointing holiday season.

“With the soft sales outlook, we do anticipate a few earlier openings” on Thanksgiving, or even a few more all-day openings, Mr. Johnson of Customer Growth said. “However, there is a law of diminishing returns,” and stores risk cannibalizing their December sales.

(from: WSJ: Expect Retailers to Open Even Earlier This Thanksgiving)

So even though some retailers will admit that shopping on Thanksgiving doesn't help their sales, and shopping too early can actually harm their December sales, they're all going to go through with it.

You can follow Andria Cheng on Twitter at: @andriacheng and as always we're at @respectturkey

The Buzz: Leave Thanksgiving alone

Maureen Wallenfang wrote up a great article with results from a survey her readers responding to a poll she started about people shopping on Thanksgiving.

Her question was:

"What do you think about stores being open all day on Thanksgiving?

Are you in the camp that enjoys the longer opportunity to shop and take advantage of deals and doorbusters? Or will you forgo the lure of big savings to preserve the holiday and take a stand for retail employees who will lose the holiday altogether?"

(from: postcrescent.com - The Buzz: Leave Thanksgiving alone)

Over 400 readers responded, and all but a few were against stores being open on Thanksgiving.

Readers had comments such as:

"If people can't get enough shopping done in 12 hours a day, seven days a week, outside of those holidays, there's something wrong with them."

"Asking employees to work crazy hours when they traditionally have been sleeping, enjoying the company of family, attending religious services, etc. is something that makes me avoid some local businesses,"

"What's the point of giving thanks for everything, if all we're after is more stuff?"

(from: postcrescent.com - The Buzz: Leave Thanksgiving alone)

More people out there shouting the message clearly to stores, Respect The Turkey!

You can follow Maureen Wallenfang on Twitter at: @wallenfang and as always we're at @respectturkey

It's only a week into september

Reddit User whooz-dat-guy found this gem while out shopping only a week into September!

reddit /r/pics - It's only a week into september...

And here we go again

Usually we don't fire the Respect The Turkey machine until at least a few weeks into September, but it looks like some stores are already firing up their merchandising machines to fight for our dollars.

WCJL in Savannah, GA has a report of a bunch of stores with their gear already out:
Christmas in September? Some stores already selling holiday decorations

As a reminder, here at RTT we're not against Christmas.
Not at all!
We just feel like businesses are disrespecting other holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving, who are almost being wiped off the calendar.

The stores don't put the Christmas things out because they love the Christmas holiday and spreading joy.
They put them out because they are begging and pushing for people to spend more and more money.

People keep pushing the numbers about how much money Americans spend on Christmas shopping.

But really, if you start shopping months and months earlier isn't it just... shopping?

The Daily Show - Black Friday

The Daily Show did a great coverage of the Black Friday mess, check it out!



From over at: thedailyshow.com

Thanksgiving Worker Laws?

Mike Foley, a state representative for Cleveland Ohio has an idea that may have retailers think twice about making their employees work on Thanksgiving.

He's working on some legislation that would force retailers to pay employees triple time if they work on Thanksgiving day, and to protect the employees' jobs if they refuse to work on the holiday.


(from over at: thinkprogress.org)

Walmart Thanksgiving Drive

In a controversial move, a Walmart in Canton Ohio started a food drive to collect items for other needy workers.


(from cleveland.com - Please donate food items here, so Associates in Need can enjoy Thanksgiving Dinner)

Many people have been outraged and point to this as a sign that employees are too underpaid to enjoy a simple Thanksgiving meal, especially when they are asking employees to work on Thanksgiving day and Black Friday where the multi-billion corporation makes its largest profits of the year.

The food drive bins were in the employee location, and Walmart has said they were intended to assist other workers who may have gone through hardships such as a spouse losing their job.

Either way, seems like if Walmart really is in the spirit of the "giving" holiday season, maybe they should "give" their employees Thanksgiving day off with a nice fat bonus to buy a big meal?

77 percent of Americans don't want Christmas before Thanskgiving

SOASTA Inc. just took a survey of over 2,000 adults across America, and the results are in.

Americans to Stores AGAIN: Don’t Decorate for Christmas Before Thanksgiving

From the site:

"81% of American adults think stores should not play Christmas music before Thanksgiving"

"77% of American adults think stores shouldn't put up Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving"

WOW.

They even did the same study last year with similar results!

America to Stores: Don’t Decorate for Christmas until After Thanksgiving

"78% of us don’t want stores to play Christmas music before Thanksgiving"

"75% think stores shouldn’t put up Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving"

Shopping on Thanksgiving?

It's not enough for some stores that have to put out their Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving,
now several stores have said they will start their big Christmas shopping sales on Thanksgiving night!

Both JC Penny and Macy's have said they'll open shopping the evening of Thanksgiving at 8:00 PM!
PopSugar - Will You Skip Thanksgiving Dinner To Go Shopping?

Toys R Us has said they'll be open in the afternoon on Thanksgiving.
Business Insider - Toys R Us Will Open At 5 PM On Thanksgiving And People Are Freaking Out

Kmart and Sears are also expected to be open on Thanksgiving day.
NBC Bay Area - Kmart, Sears to Open on Thanksgiving Day, Stay Open All Night

Ho ho home depot

Over a week until Halloween, over a month until Thanksgiving, and over two months until Christmas Day.

Home Depot is in a hurry to make all that money from the Holiday shoppers!

Kmart kringle

Kmart has already rolled out a section of Christmas stuff!

Over a month before Halloween!

It has begun.

Shopping at Michael's today, saw a whole aisle of Christmas stuff already!

Only 97 days before Christmas, better hurry and make those sales!!!