Monday, November 27, 2006

Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Killing a Tree for Christmas

Well, four days off from work and I've already forgotten my routine. Last night I couldn't remember what time I was supposed to set the alarm for. This morning I left the house and came back in three times for things I had forgotten and still I managed to leave without packing anything for lunch. Luckily I rememberd how to get to work.

Happy belated Thanksgiving to everyone! We had a nice day. We woke up late and watched the parade while I started putting up Christmas decorations. Then we spent some time with Luke's side of the family and had a nice dinner. We stayed until after midnight and despite the fact that I didn't get in to bed unto almost 1am, I was excited about going shopping early the next morning.

For about the past seven or so years, since I stopped working retail and being on the cash register side of the counter, I've been going shopping early on Black Friday and I have to say that I love it for some strange reason. I love to get out there early, before the sun is up. I love to be in the stores browsing around for nothing in particular while the mommies get into fistfights over Easy bake Ovens. I love the unexpected deals and I love to have all of my shopping done and wrapped at home before noon. I had planned to get up around 7 and head out. I wanted to go to Toys R Us to find something for my nephews, Jo-Ann Etc. for something for my sister (and me), Target for more stuff for my sister, and maybe Pier 1 just for fun if I was up to it.

I woke up and looked at the clock, saw that it was almost 7, so I got up and got ready. I kissed good-bye to a sleeping Luke and Molly and went out to the kitchen to leave where I saw the clock and it said 6:20. Ug. I could have slept for another hour. Oh well, I set out and got a jump on my big shopping day with a whopping 5 hours of sleep, no makeup and no coffee. My grumpy, sleepy, wild bedhead and bags under my eyes should scare everyone out of my way.

I hit Toys R Us as the sun was coming up and found that the line wrapped completely around the inside of the store and the things I wanted weren't on sale. Not worth waiting in line if it's not on sale. Bummer. Then I hit Jo-Ann's where I couldn't find what I wanted to get for my sister. Almost another bummer, but I walked past the bead display on the way out and saw that everything was 40% off, plus I had a 20% off coupon on top of that! Excellent.

It's now 8am and all I had purchased was $40 of beads for me. So far, not good.

I went to Target to see if I could find the toys for my nephews but found a mostly empty toy section. I tried to find something for my sister - nothing. I bought some wrapping paper and a tablecloth.

9:30am and I have beads, wrapping paper and a tablecloth. This is turning into a particularly black Black Friday. I was tired, coffeeless, giftless, and I just wanted to go home.

I headed home to get Luke and head back out for lunch and to cut down our Christmas tree. We get our tree each year the day after Thanksgiving and despite the fact that it was almost 65 degrees on Friday, we went out to see Santa and get our tree. There's a tree farm down the road from us that we've been going to every year and the old man who lives there is very sweet and dresses like Santa every day to greet the people coming to get their trees. An hour later we were home with our tree but we didn't have a chance to decorate it because we had friends coming over for dinner.

Saturday I spent all day decorating the tree and watching Christmas movies. I swear I was in slow motion this weekend. I started putting the lights on the tree around 11am and by 6:30pm I was finally done adding ornaments. Now the living room looks sparkly and Chrsitmasy and the cat is camped out on her usual spot under the tree on the skirt.

Well hopefully today I won't be in slow motion and since it is "Cyber Mmonday" maybe I'll start my online Christmas shopping and make up for my pathetic Black Friday shopping trip.

3 comments:

Optimistic Diva said...

Uh - you have a cat?

lgaumond said...

Yes, she's purely ornamental. She hates us but she won't go away. She hangs around the house looking pretty and annoying us. We feed her and verbally abuse her but she won't find a new home. Or a coyote to eat her.

Amanda said...

I really don't think I knew you had a cat either!

I always wanted to be the person who got up early and went shopping on Black Friday, but I can't do it. If I don't have to be at work, I ain't getting up that early.