Black Friday

As we all know, yesterday was "Black Friday". Christmas Shopping Hell to some. To others it's Christmas Present Treasures. Jamie and I did this shopping spree once many years ago. It took alot of convincing to have him come with me but he did. He kept telling me how stupid and crazy I was and there would be nobody at the stores and blah, blah, blah.

When we came over the hill that overlooked the mall and he saw the sea of cars, he couldn't believe it. I told him to put that Christmas spirit behind that this was war!! All those crazy women out there were only there to get the best deals as quickly as they could (including me!). We had such a good day. We shopped, we laughed, we at breakfast and lunch at the mall and we got all our shopping done in one day. I can't even tell you what year that was but it was a long time ago.

Seven years ago, when Taylor was 15 months, there was a certain toy that Corine wanted to get her for Christmas. Of course, Mimi was bound and determined to get it, so Jamie and I were at Toys-R-Us very early in the morning to make sure we got it......well, we didn't - they were all gone by the time we actually got in the store! I called my girlfriend cause she told me she saw them in some little off the way store. My friend Robin was the hero that Christmas. She got out of bed and went to the store to get the present. Can I remember what that "so special" present was? Nope!!!

Jamie and I are so excited about spending Christmas with the kids this year, that we decided it would be fun to go shopping on Black Friday to relive that hell! LOL We had a ball. Jamie looked through all the sale flyers that came in the Thanksgiving paper. We made a list, mapped our plan of attack and by 0440 Friday morning, we were on the road to the mall!!

Even I was surprised at the amount of cars. It's been awhile since we'd done this, but holy cow! Talk about traffic jam! Circuit City and Toys-R-Us had lines probably about 1/4 mile long of people waiting to get in and let me tell you that the temperature Friday morning at that time was about 25 degrees with a heavy frost! I don't know how long they'd been waiting outside, but I'm sure it was probably 30 minutes to an hour.

We had wanted to go to Toys-R-Us first, but when we saw the line, it wasn't worth it to me. The toy we wanted to get Michael, I had already purchased, but T-R-U had it on sale for 1/2 price which was a huge savings. When we saw the line, we decided we were happy to at least have the gift already. We did stop by there a couple of hours later and they were all sold out! But we went by our list and hit all the stores. Except for just a few small gifts, we were able to complete our shopping. We were home by 1130! And last night, I wrapped just about everything!

As I was wrapping gifts, I started laughing because when the kids were all home on Christmas morning and we passed out the gifts, Benny always had the biggest pile. We always spent the same amount on each kid, but for some reason, buying stuff for Benny always proved to have the best sales going and therefore, he got more. It won't be any different this Christmas. Matter of fact, I can already hear the kids saying something about it!

We will certainly miss Jamie, Jess, Andrew, Corbin and Baby Miller but their gifts will be in the mail this week!

As fast as this year has gone by, the next month will creep by as I wait to take all these Black Friday treasures to my family.