Holidays | featured news

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Put down that turkey leg. It's time to shop. No, really. Stores typically open in the wee hours of the morning on the day after Thanksgiving known as Black Friday, named for the period when stores traditionally turn a profit for the year.

USA TODAY reporters offers a few suggestions.

Those hoping to save a couple bucks on a last-minute Thanksgiving meal may want to shop at Target, which beat Walmart for the cheaper turkey dinner. Bloomberg Industries conducted a study of 15 retailers and determined that a Thanksgiving turkey dinner from Target is cheaper than one from retail competitor Walmart. An 18-item meal, including turkey, cranberries, onions, corn, pumpkin and heavy cream, from Target costs $45.48. The same dinner goes for $52.31 at Walmart, $70.18 at Whole Foods Market and $70.82 at Acme, owned by Supervalu Inc.

This holiday season, Burger King won't be the only place where you can have it your way. It used to be enough for stores to promise discounts of up to 70 percent off to lure shoppers during the busy holiday shopping season. But the ease of ordering online and the sluggish economy has created more demanding U.S. consumers who aren't impressed by discounts alone. They want their shopping just like their fast food: not only cheap, but convenient too.

I come from a divorced family, and so does my husband. Every year on Thanksgiving, we wonder: Of the four sets of parents, which one should we take our kids to visit this year? (All live nearby, which makes the decision even more challenging.) We try to be careful with our choice, but it's tricky, and we have inadvertently caused offense in the past. How can we avoid upsetting any of our loved ones this time around?

Some day in the future, anthropologists may be able to explain the bizarre shopping rituals of the 21st Century American consumer during the holiday season: Why, for example, so many people look for bargains on one day – Black Friday – when with a little work bargains can be found on the other 364. Or why they stand in midnight lines in bleak winter weather only to risk stampedes and fight each other for cheap gifts.