Thanksgiving isn’t just about turkey and mashed potatoes. Thanksgiving is a holiday for families to bond and spend quality time with each other. The day should lead to new memories being made, and thankfulness for one another. However, Black Friday is has begun earlier and now stores are open as early as 6 p.m on Thanksgiving day.

Thanksgiving is meant to promote thankfulness for what you have and for the people you love.

“How are you supposed to tell them and even sit down to thank God for everything you have when you’re working for hours?” Freshman Kalkidan Tucker said.  

Students shouldn’t be rushing to eat their meals because they have to get to work. Some people don’t even get the day off at all.

“It should be a day spent with family, not working. It isn’t fair,” said freshman Jason Reyes.

Bosses should understand workers need sometime to relax before the Black Friday mayhem begins. Usually a worker works two 8-10 hour shifts between Thursday and Friday. Senior Viviana Sandoval worked at Pacsun on Black Friday,

“We shouldn’t work on Thanksgiving because we don’t have time with our family,” said Sandoval.

By the end of their shifts students are tired and just want to go home.

“By the time my was shift was over I just went home and slept, I didn’t even get to eat any left overs” said Senior Kiara Andio.

Andino worked on Black Friday last year, and made $15 per hour. However, Andino had to go in at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving day and miss her family dinner.

Bosses also incentivize of these young student by bumping their pay raise for Thanksgiving.

“It’s a day for family, the people you love. People’s bosses should understand that,” said freshman Bismaa Khan.

The only upside to working on Thanksgiving is earning more money than usual. However, this isn’t as great as it sounds. You’ll have no time to relax with family  that you haven’t seen in a while.

The only time people should shop on Thanksgiving is to get some last minute gravy or pumpkin pie. No one goes to buy a new car or to buy new clothes from a retail store. Last year, stores like Best Buy, Target and Macy’s all shifted their starting times for Thursday evening.

However, some stores make it impossible for people to get time off, since Black Friday is their busiest day of the month.

November 1 is the beginning of the hoilday season for all stores. It’s one of the busiest months other than December.  Thanksgiving will be break for these workers so they can relax before working the next day.

The mall is closed on Christmas day so employees can spend time with their families.  The mall should  still continue to keep this tradition for Black Friday. Thanksgiving is important it would be a shame to miss out on an opportunity to hang out, hug, and cherish the people you love and miss to spend the day working. It would be very unfair of retailers to take advantage of low paid employees who are forced to work.