SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – With businesses slowly sneaking the start of their holiday shopping season into Thanksgiving Day, a local expert believes that the concept of a Christmas shopping rush on “Black Friday” will soon be a thing of the past.

Cassidy Turley retail research director Garrick Brown said businesses have been opening earlier each year on Black Friday, with many stores now opening at midnight, but with some of the biggest department stores opening late Thursday night, Thanksgiving is no longer off-limits.

“I think within the next two to three years, you are going to see most of the major retailers, most of the major malls open, for better or worse, on Thanksgiving Day,” Brown said. “I do think shoppers are going to show up in force.”

If the move pays off for stores like Wal Mart, which had a Black Friday sales time of 4:00 a.m. last year, the curtain will likely fall on the day-after-Thanksgiving tradition, Brown added.

“I think people’s holiday traditions are going to morph,” he said. “I think that there’s certainly going to be some people that aren’t into watching a football game late at night that maybe want to take the kids out to get a head start.”