Thanksgiving Closures Already Announced For Several Big Box Stores, More Expected

DETROIT (CBS Detroit) Americans are weathering competing trends when it comes to the ever-more-consuming holiday season.

On one hand, stores start creating holiday displays not long after the Fourth of July, to a round of groans across the shopping sphere; on the other side, more and more stores stay open on Thanksgiving and even Christmas Day to meet the demands of consumers -- who threaten to boycott retailers who keep employees away from home on traditional family days.

It's exhausting.

For 2016, the early retail trend seems to have stores closing on Thanksgiving Day, which is a little more than two months away.

"We have already officially confirmed eight stores that will definitely be closed on the day," said the experts behind bestblackfriday.com.

The list of closures includes:

GameStop (which has a 5 a.m. Black Friday opening)

BJ's Wholesale Club

Home Depot

Lowe's

Costco

Jo-Ann Fabric & Craft Stores

Nordstrom

Patagonia

"The consensus reasoning among the retailers is so employees and shoppers can spend more time with their friends and families," bestblackfriday.com reported.

The retail site added there are another 30 stores "that we are 99.9 percent certain will close on Thanksgiving, but we do not have official confirmation at the moment — it's coming soon though."

The biggest retailers, including Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and Kohl's will definitely be open, the site says.

But there could be a few surprises this year from companies choosing family friendly optics over an extra day of holiday shopping. Driving the trend to stay open another day is online shopping behemoths like Amazon, which allow consumers to shop 24/7, experts say.

In 2015, total Black Friday sales were predicted at $8.8 billion, down 3.2 percent from 2014, while Thanksgiving Day sales were up 18.8 percent to $3.8 billion. Combined, sales for the two days were seen coming in at about $12.6 billion, up 2.4 percent over last year, with online sales adding another $3.35 billion, up 33.3 percent over 2014, Forbes found.