Mall of America Puts Family First

It’s being heralded as a big, bold move in a consumer-driven society.

The most famous mall in America has decided to shut down on Thanksgiving Day. The trend in shopping lately has been to beat the Black Friday rush — when shopping is huge the day after Thanksgiving — by opening on the holiday.

“I work at the Mall of America and when this news hit the stores, you would have thought we’d all hit the lottery.”

But the mall has announced it will close its operations — which include a movie theater and the amusement park Nickelodeon Universe — on Nov. 24. The employees who work there will be able to spend the day at home eating turkey and yams — and debating the virtues of our by-then newly elected president.

“We think Thanksgiving is a day for families and for people we care about. We are excited to give this day back to our employees,” Jill Renslow, senior vice president of marketing and new business development for Mall of America, told the Associated Press.

“We had tenants with tears of joy that they could share the news with their employees,” she said. “We have a lot of specialty retailers that have a smaller staff, and for them it’s a huge sense of relief.”

[lz_ndn video=31480268]

“I work at the Mall of America and when this news hit the stores, you would have thought we’d all hit the lottery,” wrote Bob Wagner on Facebook’s Boycott Shopping on Thanksgiving Day page. “Staff were ecstatic and talking about [how] great it’s going to be to not have to work that day.”

There are more than 15,000 people who work at the mall who could potentially get the day off. Note: It may not be a complete shutdown. The mall is leaving it up to the 500-plus store owners to decide if they want to open up that day.

The creep of business guilt and shopping greed had been slowly taking over at the Bloomington, Minnesota, shopping mecca. In 2012, it opened its doors at midnight. A year later it opened at 8:00 p.m. Last year, it opened at 6:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.

Related: Why America Loves Dollar Stores

New start time for crazed bargain-hunters is now 5 a.m. on Black Friday — plenty of time to sleep off that turkey dinner.

Office supplies retailer Staples Inc. announced last month it will close on Thanksgiving for the second year in a row. There are dozens of stores that have followed suit and more are still deciding.

The mall will still host the Walk to End Hunger on Thanksgiving morning.