Pre-Black Friday deals

TOLEDO, Ohio - Forget Black Friday.

Some stores aren't waiting until then to open their doors to unofficially start the holiday shopping season.

Some regional stores are opening especially for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Take the Old Navy store at Westfield Franklin Park in Toledo for example. The clothing store will be open from 12 noon - 7 p.m. Thursday.

Superstores like Meijer, well, they never close. Meijer will have Black Friday deals that shoppers will be eligible for early Friday, Nov. 27, but you can still shop there throughout Thanksgiving day.

Even though shoppers normally think of toys and big ticket items like laptops when it comes to shopping the post-Thanksgiving weekend, at Meijer some of the simple items are really important.

"Thanksgiving is a very busy grocery shopping day," said Frank Guglielmi, Meijer Public Relations. "Our stores are busy throughout the Midwest. A lot of folks are picking up last minute items and we actually have people doing full blown grocery shopping that morning that wait til the morning of Thanksgiving and they go get their entire dinner."

At Westfield Franklin Park on Friday, places like Old Navy and Ulta open up at 3 a.m. Nov. 27, and so on throughout the day, with anchors like Dillard's at 8 a.m.

There is a safety aspect to some of these decisions as well.

Last year a Walmart employee in New York was trampled to death after a Black Friday crowd rushed the door. Walmart stores across the country will now be open 24 hours leading into Black Friday to avoid those crowds.