Well, I certainly won't complain about not having to work overnight. Though I will say doing 'bux last Turkey Day was kinda cool, and my coworkers and I had a good time. No angry guests, just everyone trying to join the rush. We were told as long as we didn't make it too obvious to guests, we could drink whatever we wanted for the overnight to help keep us going.
My first store actually sat everyone down just before Halloween and asked about preferred availability through the holidays, and made up at least a tentative schedule by the beginning of November. My new store isn't doing that, but this one is probably twice the size, so that would probably be a nightmare to accomplish. I was told not to expect the schedule any earlier than normal, so I guess I'll find out at the end of this week. I've actually moved near family that I like to associate with, so I hope we can coordinate some kind of dinner time.
Another tip, though it won't apply to many:
If you ride a motorbike to work like I usually do, don't do it on Black Friday. In terms of driver attention and aggression, it'll be worse than riding around an area with a lot of bars at closing time, and people will try to move your bike if they want your parking space (I speak from experience). Walk, bus, cage it, or hitch a ride. Riding on Thanksgiving is not as bad, but you'll still want to be extremely careful about where you park. In fact, when I ride to work (where ever I happen to work) on a day like that, I usually seek out special permission to park in a corner somewhere I'm not usually allowed to, simply to stay out of the way of everyone else, and have AP/security keep an extra eye out when they're able to. If you've got extra locks or alarms, use all of them.