By the end of this long weekend, we will have eaten (46 million gobblers gobbled up), travelled (44 million 50+ mile trips in cars, planes, and trains), malled (147 million crazed bargain hunters), and spent enough time watching football to have become familiar with every vulnerable bone and ligament in the human body as player after player is carted off the field after some violent collision with an opponent’s behemoth. By Christmas, consumers will likely have spent about 4 percent more than they did last year in stores (bricks) and online (clicks).

For the first time, many retailers began their “door-buster” sales on Thursday evening rather than at 6 a.m. Friday, with Target ignoring the plea of some 400,000 petitioners to “save Thanksgiving” by remaining closed until Friday. More customers than ever, literally bloodied in past scrums, placed their orders on line. And the scramble for 40-inch flat screen TVs, $180 at Best Buy; Nikon digital cameras, $100 at Target; and HP deskjet printers, $29 at Walmart, will continue on cyber-Monday, when the web can be browsed at a leisurely pace on company rather than personal time.