Simply Me: Black Friday

I think it was definitely agreed across the board that this Black Friday was the craziest yet. We headed out around 8pm on Thanksgiving Day, and half of our group went to Walmart while the other half went to Target. Black Friday is definitely much easier in groups, and a lot more fun. Although I didn't really even want to shop for anything until 6 am on Friday, I headed out with the group, and everyone helps each other wait in line and grab this and that.

Of course Black Friday starts by buying the papers and searching the ads for a few hours

The first stop at Walmart--I was waiting in line for a micro SD card for my Aunt, and the lady in line next and I started talking about what we wanted/Thanksgiving/family, etc... Turns out all she wanted was a micro SD card for her phone so that she could download all of her cell phone pictures of her husband who had died a month before of stage four pancreatic cancer. Definitely a humbling conversation, and gives you even more to be grateful for. Makes you stop and think as you are shopping for essentially meaningless material things.

After Walmart, we met up with the other half of our group who had gone to Target. After they were finished at Target, they went over to Kohl's and Best Buy to wait in line at those stores. Most of our group wanted to head over to Kohl's, and Kavya was after a camera for her mom in Best Buy. Grandma went and suffered through almost two hours in the Best Buy line before we found out we could just order the things we needed online, as we probably wouldn't even get them from the store anyway (there were only two of the cameras in the entire store). Suzanne and I went and rescued her from the cold and the line, and we all joined Aunt Tara and Suzanne in the Kohl's line. We were very close to the doors for once--Kohl's always seems to be crazy. We got everything we wanted, however, which was great. There were enough of us for one person to go ahead and get in line, so by the time we were all ready to purchase, we didn't even wait in line. Groups are the best.

The line/doors at Kohl's

Our whole group waiting in line--Mom, Suzanne, Rachel, Aunt Tara, Me, Kavya, and Grandma

Everyone at Kohl's with their purchases--starting to get tired...

After we were finished with Kohl's it was nearly 2am. Mom was super tired and ready to head back to the house. The rest of the group went over to KMart (mistake--none of us had ever been there before--very interesting). We ended up just getting a pair of footie pajamas for one of Aunt Tara's boys, and then we all headed home too. JCPenney's was actually one of the top places that everyone wanted to go... ALL of us had items we wanted from them, and they opened at 6am. Well, between everyone being so tired and going to all different places and what-not, we got mixed up, and we thought JCPenney's opened at 5, so we headed back out at about 430, and when we got to the mall, there was nobody even in any lines for the store, which was nice. It was also a nice change that the lines were INSIDE, nice and warm :). Grandma and I went over to the Men's/Household department, which is on the opposite end of the mall from the women's/kid's/juniors section. Kavya, Suzanne, and Rachel waited in line there, because they were after clothes. Grandma and I were after kitchen/cookware things, which were pretty hot ticket items, so I was surprised we got all of the ones we wanted. Anyways, we finished up our shopping, and headed home around 7:30.

The girls and Grandma were going on 0-2 hours of sleep here... Mom and Aunt Tara chickened out and enjoyed at least 5 hours of sleep!

I'm pretty sure Grandma will continue to show all of us up, whether that be with cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc... She's tough. Kavya was way impressed with her.

You would think we were done shopping at that point, but nope, not yet. We go to JoAnn's every single year. Their snuggle flannel is always SO cheap, and so is there blizzard fleece. The girl's make tie blankets with the blizzard fleece, and we use the snuggle flannel for rag quilts. So off we went to JoAnn's. We got home around ten, and then Mom took Ryan over to Five Below because he really wanted to spend five of his dollars to invest in a snuggie. One of his first purchases, and man is he proud of that snuggie.