Black Friday!

It's the day everyone dreads...Black Friday! In all the years I can remember, I don't think I actually did any major shopping on Black Friday. Last year Joe and I tried to get some good deals but we didn't arrive to the store until almost 7am...we learned that day that you MUST be early. So, this year we decided we were not going shopping at all because neither of us had kids that day and we just wanted to sleep in. I guess the tryptophan in the turkey the night before kicked in and we fell asleep on the couch around 930. By 5am I was wide awake and decided to let the dogs out. Of course they jumped on "Daddy" on the way out and woke him up. Since we were both up, we decided to hit up two stores. That was the plan, TWO stores. Why do things never happened as planned?? So at 6am we left the house for what we though would be a SHORT shopping trip....

Our first stop was Toys R Us. WHAT A MISTAKE! We walked in and it was like a football stadium when the game just finished! People were everywhere! There were absolutely no carts. The line for the register wrapped completely around the store and weaved in and out of the aisles! We decided that NO deal was worth the wait in that line! So we looked around a little bit and decided we were going to come back later. If the deals were gone, we didn't care. We decided to be pompous and say that we would rather pay a little bit higher prices than have to wait in line for hours.

Our next stop was to the PX (Post Exchange--the military department store basically). We browsed around a little bit and got a few good deals, mainly for ourselves. We picked up a Blu-Ray player that is the same brand/model of our TV for $169! Last year the same player was $499!! I believe it was normally $299 this year. We also picked up a coffee grinder for him to take on his deployment and a portable DVD player. I did get the boys a Wii game a piece...that was our one Christmas present in the cart which ended up totally over $500.

The next stop (by this time it was 9:30am) was Sonic. No, not a shopping store, but a GREAT place to fill the coffee ridden bellies. LOL. I just want to say that if you have not tried the Sausage Biscuit Dippers, you don't know what you are missing! AWESOME!

After Sonic we decided to take the dreaded trip back to Toys R Us. This time, there still were not any carts available but, the line was quite a bit shorter. It only went on one side of the store. Joe got in line with one item and I shopped for the others while he waited in line for me. What a great boyfriend! :-) I grabbed a few items and would take them to him. Finally, he was able to get a cart (to lean on...LOL!) while he waited. Believe it or not, I was able to still get all the items I wanted to get from the Black Friday special despite the fact that we arrived 3 hours after they started. In all, I bought about four presents a piece for them. The total when I first looked was $216!!!!! I realized that wasn't the total after the discounts. When she hit the total button, it was only $122!!!!!! I could not believe we had saved almost 50% by taking advantage of Black Friday deals. I am not sure if I will cuss Black Friday again or complain about standing in line for a little bit. I think it was well worth my time. By the way, I think Joe only waited in line about 45 mins...the people that arrived first thing in the morning had waited over 2 1/2 hours!

After Toys R Us, we were in a shopping mood and just decided we should stop by some of the other major stores and pick up the remaining presents we wanted to get the boys. I knew in my head all the items I wanted to get. I had looked at the MOUNDS of sale papers/ads at my friend's house the night before. We made stops at K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Target, Big 5 Sporting Goods, and finally the mall. By the time we were done, it was 5:30pm!!!! We had been shopping for almost twelve hours! I had put on some cute dress boots that went well with my red sweater (and some Frosty earrings) not thinking we would have been out that long. My feet were SCREAMING by the time we got home! I have never wanted to wear tennis shoes with a nice sweater as much as I did yesterday about half way through the day.

When we arrived home I decide to go ahead and wrap all the presents. It took me slightly over and hour (all while watching Sopranos and potty break) to get all the presents wrapped. The only thing I have left to do now is to fill the stockings. I can't believe it, I have ALL my Christmas shopping (for the boys) done! It felt so wonderful. Then he said the dreaded words "you ready for bed so we can get up early to get the next round of sales tomorrow?". Uggh...I can't believe I actually didn't want to go shopping again! He wanted to go to the PX to look at a jewelry armoire for me that would be on sale Saturday morning. I didn't want it THAT bad! LOL.

Needless to say, we got up early again today and went to the PX. The armoire wasn't really what I wanted so we passed it up. We then went grocery shopping...which is usually another HUGE ordeal for us! Today we spent over two hours in the grocery store. A little bit of that time was watching the lady make some fresh sushi...which I definitely took advantage of. :-) We were back home and lounging on the couch with sushi and his turkey sandwich by 12:30. SOOO much better than yesterday...thank goodness!

The next task, a Christmas tree....