Walmart introduces ‘Black Thursday,’ changes family traditions - WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-

You better plan ahead - way ahead - for upcoming Black Friday sales this year, especially now that Walmart will open up stores at 8 p.m. Thanksgiving Thursday. 

Walmart officially hates families. It's not crazy enough that people have to stuff turkey into their mouths like a July 4th hot dog eating contest so they can be out and in line by midnight for Black Friday, now the superstore aims to move the sale up to 8 p.m. Thanksgiving night. Or what you'd otherwise call "dinner time."

The retailer also announced that anyone already inside Walmart between 10 to 11 p.m. will be guaranteed three gadgets of their shopping heart's desires – including an Apple iPad (albiet the second-generation edition) priced at $400 with a $75 Walmart gift card.

The stores will be open overnight onto the standard Black Friday sales hours to accommodate shoppers not willing to leave Thanksgiving dinner to shop just yet. But of course, you snooze, you lose so don't blame the retailer if your sought-out laptop is gone by the time you arrive.

"We got customer feedback that says ‘I like to shop earlier so I can go to bed earlier,'" Duncan MacNaughton, Walmart's chief merchandising officer, said in a statement.

Walmart says this year's sales will be its most "aggressive" yet, including video games starting at $10, a 43-inch Samsung 720p HDTV for $378, Beats by Dr. Dre headphones for $179, and a Nintendo Wii console for $89.

MacNaughton says any combination of the aforementioned items will be available during the Thursday night sales hours, and Walmart will have enough inventory to meet the anticipated demand. "We bought deep, very deep, and we bought deep on items that matter to our customers," he said.

In addition to the earlier extended hours, Walmart will also include online-specific deals that will be available on Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. We're not sure who Walmart polled to decide to ruin family traditions with consumerism, but if you need an excuse to escape your family or don't so much as care to watch the annual Thanksgiving NFL football game, you'll probably want to plan for a Thanksgiving lunch or forgo the meal altogether so you can line up by 2 p.m. You poor, lonely, materialistic thing.