I’ve never gotten a very big kick out of shopping on Black Friday. Although, I must admit that $1.29 is a pretty good price to pay for a 52-inch Sony flat screen.

After getting people all riled up for years about Black Friday shopping, retailers began trying to convince us that shopping at midnight on Black Friday was a good idea. Then finally, that it’s OK to leave the turkey on the table and the dishes in the sink on Thanksgiving Day itself and hit the mall.

Personally, I just don’t have the ambition for Thanksgiving Day shopping. I’m not getting any younger, so there’s that. But also, by 4 p.m. or so on Thanksgiving Day, the turkey endorphins pretty much have me comatose on the couch.

But, alas! Suddenly a couple years ago, some of the big-boxes and the fairly big-boxes started trying to convince us that no, it was all a big mistake. We were just kidding! That Thanksgiving is for family after all. Say, what?

Malls — even the king of them all (for now), the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn. — started sort of closing on Thanksgiving Day in order to give their employees the day off “to be with their families.” It even started advertising as much, at least in part to shame competitors into doing the same thing.

But when God closes the door to one retail outlet, he doesn’t necessarily open another. I’m here to tell you that spending the day with family isn’t always a day at the beach, either. Too many people with the same last name in the same place can be a little … confining. How should I say this? A little claustrophobic.

So, choose carefully, America. Over the river etc. etc … to Grandmother’s house we go. Or, Best Buy. New meaning to word pro-choice. We can have both, I suppose, but the dishes will still be waiting in the sink when we get home with our new 89-cent iPads.