Remember the holiday formerly known as Thanksgiving? It had a pretty good run for about 390 years—until around 2011, when it began to be replaced with a shopping extravaganza. In the past few years, the traditional dividing line between Thanksgiving and Black Friday, the official start of the holiday retail season, has blurred. At many major retail stores, this Thursday won’t be a day of turkey and family time but a mad rush for XBoxes and iPhones. Here’s how Black Friday’s Thanksgiving creep became a full-blown takeover:
