"Gravy Thursday" The New "Black Friday?"

Retailers continue their drive to take all the fun out of Black Friday. Or as they call it, a drive to "make a profit." Reports this year are saying many more stores than ever will be open on Thanksgiving Day itself, providing amble opportunity for shoppers to work off some of that indigestion by buying a $140 laptop.

For years now, the tradition of Black Friday has been seeping into all the other surrounding days, creating a sort of Black November. Cyber Monday now accounts for a huge portion of holiday season sales. And retailers such as Best Buy now hold "early doorbuster" sales in the days leading up to Friday. Now, in the logical conclusion, many stores are staying open and hosting sales on Thanksgiving itself. ("Gravy Thursday?")

Old Navy, Wal-Mart, Toys "R" Us and RadioShack are all retailers experimenting with holiday hours. Even TGI Friday's, rebelling against its brand name's very promise, is testing out Thanksgiving Thursday openings.

The logic is not hard to understand:

"They're trying to eke every penny out of every day of the selling season," says Wendy Liebmann, president of the consulting firm WSL Strategic Retail. "The more days they're open, the more chance they have of pulling money out of our pockets."

The brand this retail event expansion may hurt "Black Friday" itself. Once, the day after Thanksgiving was "a day," an event that, while riotous, stressful and not always fulfilling, was a national event in which participation was meaningful. But as the insanity gets spread around, the intensity diminishes. And if that goes too far, Black Friday will just be another day Americans buy a bunch of cheap stuff they don't need. Where's the fun in that?

Tune in to brandchannel on Friday, November 27, for Abe Sauer's Black Friday updates.