"It was quite the heated dialogue here in our office," said Veronica King, vice president and Santa Rosa Market Manager for Bank of Marin, whose decision to work in banking was based in part on the ability to get holidays off, after missing family gatherings as a hospitality worker.
"It's a time you don't get back, and you can't make up for it," King said.
But family traditions take different shapes, and for many, heading out in the wee hours with coffee, credit cards and cousins in tow has become an annual ritual.
"I've done it my whole life; it was a tradition with my family," said Katie Strickland, 25, who does marketing for a small business in Santa Rosa. "We go to bed early, get up before midnight, and my mom always had hot chocolate and some type of leftovers .... and my dad would take us down and wait in line at the stores with us."
Even so, Strickland won't show up at any stores before midnight. She loves Black Friday, but doesn't want to take part in what she called "Crazy Thursday."
"I'd rather keep that precious Thursday, and spend time with family and loved ones," Strickland said.
Nancy Citro, a retired event planner in Healdsburg, agreed. Citro intends to spend the holiday with friends, and then take a hike or a bike ride, as she does every year.
"We need less corporations and more family, and that's what Thanksgiving is all about," Citro said.
Retailers are responding to what they say is consumer demand for stores to be open on Thanksgiving. And once stores began announcing Thanksgiving hours, the others fell into line like dominoes.
"It just comes down to being competitive," said Mike Gobble, store manager for JC Penney in Coddingtown Mall. "Ultimately, it's the customer that is voting for these shopping times."
JC Penney is opening at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving and has been opening at midnight on Black Friday for several years, and the stores that opened then had big days, Gobble said.
"I just find it hard to believe that they wouldn't be able to make those same transactions at a different timeframe," King said.
Retail workers, who mostly didn't have a choice about working the holiday, are finding ways to preserve some holiday traditions as they accept their fate.
"When I get together with family, I let them know when I'm working, and it usually works out," said Dan Gilman, a reset assistant who restocks shelves at Kmart in Santa Rosa who has worked for the company for more than a decade. "In retail, that's what you do. When one store does well that day, it encourages another store to open."
Kmart stores are opening at 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving, as they have for the past three years, said spokesman Howard Riefs in an emailed statement.
"We understand many associates want to spend time with their families during the holiday," Riefs wrote. The store does its best to staff with seasonal workers and those who work Thanksgiving earn holiday pay, he said.
At JC Penney, managers took into consideration that some workers had planned to travel out of town for the holiday.
"Luckily there weren't that many, so we respected that time," Gobble said.
Many retail workers were reluctant to comment for the story, fearing that they might face punishment if they spoke out against their employers. But their frustration was apparent.
"I think it's pretty hard," said Maria Vargas of Santa Rosa, a janitor at Santa Rosa Plaza, who typically sees her extended family on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Santa Rosa Plaza and Coddingtown Mall will open at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving.
"Especially for me, it's a special day," Vargas said. "All my family comes in. ... This year I won't have any dinner, because I have to work."
Another, a kiosk worker, was hit with the double-whammy of having to work on Thanksgiving and Hanukkah, which begins Wednesday. To adjust, she plans to celebrate both holidays Wednesday night after the mall closes.
"Do I like it? No," she said. "Every year we have to do it earlier and earlier. But it will be OK."
Thousands took to social movement website Change.org to sign petitions urging big box stores to stay closed on Thanksgiving. Taking aim at Kohl's, Target, Simon Property Group, Walmart and others, petitioners called the trend an "anti-family, anti-holiday mess," and declared that "shopping is not a historical family value or tradition." A week before Thanksgiving, a petition pitched to Target reached nearly 100,000 signatures.
"I think there are a few people that are just trying to keep the holiday protected, and I can understand that," Gobble said in response to the petitions. "But it's the customers that make it fun."
At Old Navy, one high school student who has to work the holiday lamented that her participation in Thanksgiving day sales was not taking the shape that she'd like.
"I wasn't really planning on going anywhere (on Thanksgiving), but I did really want to shop," she said.
Amanda Smith, who works holidays at Turning Point, the drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, said she likes that the stores will be open on Thanksgiving.
"If I have to work, why shouldn't anyone else?" Smith said.
(You can reach Staff Writer Cathy Bussewitz at 521-5276 or cathy.bussewitz@pressdemocrat.com.)
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