Home Depot: Home Depot will be closed on Thanksgiving but will open at 6 a.m. on Black Friday. Lowes: Lowes will be closed on Thanksgiving, but will open at 6 a.m. on Black Friday. Ace Hardware: Each store is independently owned, but a majority of the stores will be closed on Thanksgiving.

Before holiday shopping mania fully sets in, most mail carriers are taking a break this week. The United States Postal Service will not be operating Thursday as the agency observes Thanksgiving, a federal holiday.

With Thanksgiving and the formal launch of the holiday shopping season, Americans will again be consumed with the annual trifecta of turkey, travel and transactions — lots of them.

Year after year, retailers tried to outdo each other by opening earlier and earlier in the morning on Black Friday. Eventually, that meant opening on Thanksgiving.

Black Friday is a major shopping day for the nation's retailers. Here's what's happening with the stock market and USPS.

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S., has a reputation as one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Black Friday has become something of an anachronism in the e-commerce era. The day after Thanksgiving marks the official start of the holiday shopping season, but retailers already have spent