Walmart has not always been known for making decisions that hold their employees at heart. As someone who has seen more than one loved one get the short end of the corporation’s stick, it was surprising to me when Walmart did something that I never thought it would do.

This week, the superstore juggernaut announced that it would be closing its stores on Thanksgiving Day. Yes, you read that right—Thanksgiving Day.

That is usually when Walmart declares thanks that a lot of people not only want to cut their dinner short to shop for big “doorbuster” deals, as well as the ones cooking the dinner who somehow forgot to get the butter needed for the dinner rolls. Last year, Walmart held its Black Friday sale at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day after keeping its stores open for most of the holiday itself.

News reports of community Thanksgiving dinners in recent years have usually been preceded by reports of people stampeding into stores to get a 60-inch television set for 70% off or the latest favorite children’s toy. For most of this current century, department stores like Walmart have taken the Black Friday tradition—named for its tendency to push those stores’ annual bottom lines into the black for the year—and tried to get as much mileage out of it by opening earlier and earlier on Thanksgiving Day.

According to a story from the Business Insider, Walmart decided to act after one of its employees suggested so that the workers could spend the holiday with its employee. I find it hard to believe, especially since people have been suggesting to Walmart and other stores—rather emphatically, I might add—for years.

It seems more likely that Walmart officials took one look at 2020, with the coronavirus forcing most businesses to reduce the number of people they can have inside their buildings, and realized that Black Friday would most likely be another casualty. Rightfully so, especially when you consider the phenomenon has created a crowded atmosphere that could spread coronavirus in the same fashion that gasoline agitates a fire.

Closing on Thanksgiving is hardly a new thing. I am not talking about the distant past, when the Thanksgiving holiday was sacred. I mean the last few years, when Barnes and Noble. Lowe’s, Sierra Trading Post, T.J. Maxx and other businesses made the conscious effort to show they love their workers by allowing them to spend the holiday with family instead of forcing them to work and make the corporate fat cats buckets of cash.

About six or seven years ago, my sister and brother-in-law were caught up in the fervor of getting rock-bottom deals on Thanksgiving night at a Walmart in Antigo, Wisconsin, and they managed to convince me and other relatives to lend them a hand, even having a coordinated plan of attack. After that one experience, I knew that doing Christmas shopping at the expense of another holiday was just plain wrong.

Hopefully, Walmart’s announcement will compel other companies like Target, Sears and J.C. Penney to follow suit. It is time for greed to take a backseat to family values for that reason and not because of fears that we might get sick and die.

Of course, we have also got to remember that many folks have abandoned the pursuit of deals in actual stores and instead prefer to do their shopping from home, going to websites, making a few clicks and then going back to their regular lives. We might as well just keep all the stores closed and let everyone who can spend time with family to do so.

I applaud Walmart’s decision to close its stores this year, but I think the praise should be reserved until we see whether the company decides to keep the decision in place in future years when the coronavirus has become a distant memory. Once that happens, I will be glad to cheer for the company. Let us sit back and watch.