UPDATE 3-If it's Thanksgiving, it must be time to shop

* Sears, Wal-Mart among stores open during holiday

* "Add on" not season-breaker for retailers

* Shoppers "killing time"
(Adds analyst comments, online traffic data)

By Brad Dorfman

CHICAGO, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Forget the turkey and the
football -- if it's Thanksgiving Day, why aren't you shopping?

U.S. retailers, trying to squeeze every extra cent out of
shoppers, are open on Thursday for Thanksgiving, trying to get
a jump on the holiday shopping season.

Among the retailers that will open on Thursday are Wal-Mart
Stores Inc's (WMT.N) U.S. discount stores, 850 of Gap Inc's
(GPS.N) Old Navy stores as well as some of its Gap and Banana
Republic stores; and Sears Holdings Corp's (SHLD.O) namesake
department stores and Kmart discount stores.

For shoppers, it is a chance to find some early deals on
electronics and clothes to fill the lull before the holiday
meal or to avoid the throngs that will shop on "Black Friday"
-- the traditional start of the holiday shopping season.

"I'm actually kind of bored so I'm killing time, trying to
catch some bargains," Vonney Brown, 40, of Bayonne, New Jersey,
said at a Sears in the Newport Centre Mall in Jersey City,
where there appeared to be as many employees as customers at
midday on Thursday.

"I'm not coming out on Black Friday," said Brown, who was
joined by his wife and two children. "You got to be out of your
mind."

For retailers, opening the stores amounts to extra sales at
the start of what is expected to be the best holiday shopping
season since 2007 -- before falling home prices, tight credit
and soaring unemployment forced consumers to cut spending.

The holiday season is essential for many retailers, who
depend on it for a big part of their profits for the year.

But people shopping on Thursday will still only be a
fraction of the 138 million the National Retail Federation
hopes to see on Black Friday, the following day.

"It's an add-on," Brian Sozzi, an analyst at Wall Street
Strategies, said of stores opening on Thanksgiving.

"If one of the retailers that is open on Thanksgiving has a
bad day, I don't think it is going to make or break the
season," he added.

Sozzi stopped at Sears and Wal-Mart stores on Long Island,
N.Y. and said traffic picked up later in the morning.

But he also said discounts being offered were not that
deep, which could help retailer profits during the quarter.