Each year, ads and leaks about the special deals on Black Friday seem to creep into our conscience earlier and earlier in the year. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) is the world's largest retailer and a bellwether for the retail industry.

According to CNN Money,

“Wal-Mart is expected to officially release its Black Friday circular early next week, although it started unwrapping ‘holiday’ deals weeks ago.”

Major retailers like Wal-Mart, Target Corp. (TGT) and Best Buy Co., Inc. (BBY) are eagerly trying to grab holiday spending dollars as early as possible.  With gasoline prices soaring and housing and credit problems affecting many consumers, retailers are concerned about how much Americans will be willing to spend less on gifts in 2007.

Surveys by the retail federation indicate that holiday shopping is off to a slow start, with 71 percent of consumers having less than 10 percent of their shopping done thus far. Additionally, the trade group's surveys indicate consumer spending will rise only about 4 percent to $474.5 billion. This increase falls below the 10-year average of 4.8 percent annually and would be the slowest holiday sales growth since 2002.

Often the Black Friday ads for doorbuster deals are leaked and posted on websites that track Black Friday promotions.

"The fact that consumers are very eager to find out what's going to happen on Black Friday morning never changes," said Kathy Grannis, a spokesman for the National Retail Federation.

From ToledoBlade, 

“Wal-Mart, which has been blase about Black Friday ads in the past, took a new tack this year. It sent the private Web sites notices that it would sue if they disclosed the company's ads early. However, on Nov. 1, the nation's largest retailer announced it would offer holiday discounts three weeks in advance. It notified the private Web sites it would post its day-after-Thanksgiving specials next Monday on its Web site. ‘Their ads broke early last year and I think they felt that if they had a really good sale on Black Friday it would hurt their weekly sales leading up to that day,’ said Michael Brim, a California college student who runs the bfads.net Web site.”

I have never ventured out for the deals on Black Friday. It always seemed like a recipe for “black and blue” bruises to me.

Photo from MSNBC 2006 Robyn Beck / AFP via Getty Images file