By Sloane Donovan —

As Snapchat and Instagram feeds fill with “unique” meals for the holidays, it’s time to realize that Thanksgiving is only days away.

There will be turkey, maybe some ham, mashed potatoes and stuffing. But once all the turkey day festivities come to a close, and Aunt Barb asked about your love life for the 22nd year in a row, it’s time to join the rest of America and hit the crowds to buy all the stuff you “need.”

Black Friday is the one day of the year when it’s socially acceptable to shop all night. But with this crazy day comes lots of preparation.

“As far as preparing goes, we are getting more and more stock every week to build up for Black Friday and the following days,” Best Buy sales associate Greg Smith said. “(We’re) also making plan-o-grams for new products around the store where more traffic is.”

Electronics stores aren’t the only ones preparing.

“We are already making the schedules, and we all have to work at least eight hours on Black Friday,” Victoria’s Secret sales associate Candace Wagner said.

But Dillard’s sales associate Jaelyn Franzoi said the store operates a bit differently.

“As for preparing for Black Friday, we haven’t done anything yet or talked about it in our meetings – probably won’t until the week of – but our hours on Black Friday are the same as the normal mall hours,” Franzoi said. “But our big sales are on New Year’s, so we don’t really do anything special for Black Friday.”

Hiring new staff to help during the season seems the right thing to do.

“We hired 50-75 seasonal employees and we are training everyone new, that way they will know what to do (the) day of,” Wagner said.

“We start hiring a lot of people a little before November to have extra staff for the holiday season,” Smith said. “The hours slowly incline getting closer to Christmas, especially Black Friday and after.”

But according to Franzoi, Dillard’s didn’t hire seasonal employees.

While Dillard’s and Victoria’s Secret didn’t have Black Friday deals to share, Smith shared Best Buy’s.

“They have deals on mostly everything,” Smith said. “But the ones that get people in the door would have to be the TVs and computers.”