Business

Mall of America to close for Thanksgiving

For the first time ever, the largest mall in the United States will close on Thanksgiving this year, bucking a popular trend of starting Black Friday sales early.

That means 1,200 employees who work for the mall will be able to spend the day leisurely eating turkey with their families.

While the mall will remain closed, some of the 520 stores may opt to open on Thanksgiving.

According to The Minneapolis Star Tribune, Mall of America will "close down as many of its operations as possible" on Thanksgiving day.

The Bloomington, Minnesota-based mall, anchored by department stores like Macy's m and Sears shld , and home to hundreds of other stores like Gap Global Positioning System and Abercrombie & Fitch anf , will open on Black Friday at 5 a.m., as was the norm just six years ago.

But a demoralized or exhausted workforce on the second biggest shopping weekend of the year (the final Saturday before Christmas is actually the biggest spending day of the year, well ahead of Black Friday), is a risky proposition.

"We are excited to give this day back to our employees", said Jill Renslow, senior vice president of marketing and new business development for Mall of America. "We have a lot of specialty retailers that have a smaller staff, and for them it's a huge sense of relief". They opened at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving, closed at midnight, then reopened on the actual Black Friday at 6 a.m. Richfield-based Best Buy has also closed its stores for a few hours in the middle of that night in the last two years.

If that happens, we may be saying goodbye to Black Friday creep.

Signage hangs at Mall of America during a media tour of its security systems on February 23, 2015 in Bloomington, Minnesota.

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Mall of America to close for Thanksgiving