Holiday Review

Well, Thanksgiving is over for another year.  As I mentioned before, this year was a little different for me, but  different doesn't necessarily mean bad.  I spent this holiday with my husband's family and while it was much more quiet and orderly than what I'm used to, it was nice.  I only had one melt down before we left.  I did miss my family a lot.  But like I shared at the table before we ate, I am thankful for new family and new traditions.

As for my first Black Friday experience (and I do mean experience!) it was pretty incredible.  Thanksgiving day flew by, we ate, napped and then left for shopping.  The stores open earlier every year, so I'm told, and this year we were at our local super store by 6:30 PM Thanksgiving evening to catch the eight o'clock sales. We went for the movie sale first.  We found ourselves surrounding the plastic wrapped bin with "Brave" in it. Probably the worst bin to be around.  People are all nice and friendly until it's go time.  It was ridiculous!  We got all of the Blu-Rays we wanted, and then some.  But people are insane.  Maybe I'm just not ruthless enough, but fighting to the death for a movie, or sweater or whatever, the day after we're thankful for what we have seems a little ridiculous to me!

The next sale was at 10:00 PM so we stayed and gathered around another plastic wrapped flat with some printers and other electronics.  If I thought the movie aisles were bad, electronics were worse!  We got what we wanted and made our way to the neighboring bigger town where there were more shopping options.  After a stop at IHOP and a game plan for the other sales we headed to the mall.  I have never seen it so busy!  I shopped for me, I shopped for Chris, found some great deals and stayed alive! :)

I have to admit that I was worried about staying up the whole night, but you're on the go so much and trying not to get shoved or trampled and searching for that good deal can jump start your adrenaline, so it wasn't as much of a struggle as I had anticipated.  And because I love lists, here is one of all the places we stopped:

-Walmart
-Sears
-Home Depot
-Target
-Bath and Body Works
-JC Penney
-Maurices
-Lowe's
-Aeropostale
-Sam's Club
-Rue 21
-Victoria's Secret

The only time we stood outside in the freezing cold was for Sam's Club.  We got there about an hour and a half before doors opened for a 98 cent cell phone and a Blu-Ray player.  That was the hardest stop, because it was our last one.  Also, the line for cell phones was ridiculously slow and by that time I was tired and my body ached from standing and walking and stress/tension, so I was ready to be done.

The ride home was hard.  I kept nodding off and willing myself to stay awake until we made it home.  Then my body played a rebel and decided to be awake the minute we walked through my door.  Which, by the way, was at 10:00 the next morning.  I had been shopping for about 16 hours.  That is a LOT of shopping!

Anyway, I survived.  I didn't get trampled or shoved into any walls and I caught up on sleep over the extended weekend.  Thanksgiving and Black Friday of 2012 are officially over! And you know what that means!!!


CHRISTMAS!! :)

(One of my all time favorite Christmas songs!)

To catch me up on my list of thankfuls:

Thursday, 22nd: New family and new traditions
Friday, 23rd: Warm clothes and 2 stalwart legs!

And today, I'm thankful for a husband that scraped the frozen snow off my car windows, so I didn't have to.  :)

Bergen Says: Yes, I will be playing Christmas music from here on out!