Black Friday. It’s a day when all store etiquette is thrown out the window and customers run around in the hope of finding the best deals possible — the day when people are most similar to a herd of stampeding elephants.

In years past, shoppers would line up outside department stores at ungodly hours of the morning, waiting to get the best deals around town. While that same routine undoubtedly still occurs today, now it starts a day earlier.

Recent years have revealed a ridiculous trend of stores opening even earlier for Black Friday sales — doors often open on Thanksgiving evening. Many retailers at the Mall of America are opening at 6 p.m., nearly 12 hours earlier than I remember stores opening in the past.

With the premature opening times, I wouldn’t be surprised to see empty shelves bright and early on Friday morning.

Thanksgiving Day sales are a new tradition that, no doubt, we need to put to a halt. Not only have they taken away from the importance of the Thanksgiving holiday itself, but they have also made consumers more impatient and greedy than ever before.

That being said, there are a select few chains that have chosen to remain loyal to Thanksgiving and give their employees the holiday off. These stores include Barnes and Noble, Home Depot, and even Nordstrom’s.

Hopefully, stores will continue to boycott this crass trend — and, in turn, restore the real significance of the Thanksgiving holiday. It’s a time to be thankful instead of greedily purchasing material items. It’s a day to spend with family as opposed to mowing people down in shopping lines. Only once we stop shopping on Thanksgiving can the holiday return to what it once was.