Black Friday
One of the days I look forward to the most out of the year is Black Friday. The Friday after Thanksgiving when all of the Christmas shopping begins. Major sales, big deals, and tons of customers. Each year I get up at around 4:30 am to hit the stores and grab the deals. There are crazy things that can happen in the stores and parking lots on these days. A few instances stick out in my memory.
The year Wal Mart had the Razor Scooters on sale, we were in CA that year, and there were women fighting over the scooters. I remember one woman took a scooter out of another shopper's cart.
The year I took Katie out for her first shopping experience we decided to go to Best Buy for our first stop. There were so many people there at 6am that the entire Home Depot (next door) parking lot was full as well as both sides of State Street.
The next year Jess and I went to Radio Shack where the sales clerks were less than bright and had all of their inventory in the back. I guess that location had never had a hot item for sale before, they didn't think they'd sell them all before 6:30am. The lady in line behind us yelled at the clerk that we had cut in before her- anyway when we get up to check out the guy running my husband's credit card just about didn't let me use it. I offered to give him another card and he "let it slide this time". Inexperienced store, that's for sure.
This year, I didn't have a babysitter and I didn't think waking Ryan up at 4am was a very good idea, so I let him "sleep in" and we got going as soon as he was awake on his own- all of 6:40am. We were out the door before 8am and I was pleasantly surprised that the lines had dissipated quite a lot. It was well worth sleeping in since I didn't need anything that was on the 6, 5, or 4am hot sheet. The other shoppers were, well, I wouldn't go as far as friendly, but at least not ravenous. The lines were manageable, and everything I wanted was available.
I got nearly everyone on my list taken care of on the first stop. Our second stop was TOYS R US. The line was pretty bad, but of of course I heard stories of what it was like two hours previous. It went fast though and I got Ryan a new inexpensive toy for the trouble he'd been through and would have to endure the rest of the day. I was glad when I got out of there and quite disappointed in myself when I realized that I had forgotten a crucial item, but luckily Colin got off early and went out with me later. I made about three more stops then we went home for lunch and nap time before heading out again with Daddy.
Our big purchase of the year was truly amazing though and I have to share about it. We were looking over the adds and decided that this would finally be the year we got an HD TV. I told Colin to find the best deal (within reason) and we figured out that K Mart had the deal, and that they were actually open on Thanksgiving. I'm totally against it, but it saved me at least 2 hours of sleep and who knows how much other trouble getting a big TV at 4 am with a 2 year old (all by myself) would have been. So, while the turkey was in the oven and Ryan was asleep, we left Katie and Erin with the Trivial Pursuit and took off to get our deal. We found out that our TV was on sale, but would drop another $100 on Sunday. The clerk told me I could get a price adjustment when I found out that they only had 2 in stock. So, we went home with the TV and will go back for our price adjustment and get an even better deal! We also had some credit card reward gift cards we'd been planning on putting toward the purchase so we ended up spending about half on the TV's original price- not bad.
So, we had to get a new Entertainment Center to put the TV in and we found one that we absolutely fell in love with at IKEA. That was the project for the weekend and Colin and I have absolutely sat back and admired our work and set up since then. It is so not like me to do Christmas early, but what do you do with a giant TV box in a tiny apartment that is already overflowing with kid stuff? Anyway, here are pictures of our new finds- and Christmas presents!
Maybe we're doing this backward, but our old stuff is for sale now. So if you know anyone who needs a good deal on an entertainment center, or TV, send them my way. Oh, and if it's one of you (my friends) who are interested, I'm willing to give you a good deal.
Boxes for the new Entertianment Center.
About half way done!
The Entertainment Center all done and the new TV in place.
The set-up wtih Christmas Decorations.
The year Wal Mart had the Razor Scooters on sale, we were in CA that year, and there were women fighting over the scooters. I remember one woman took a scooter out of another shopper's cart.
The year I took Katie out for her first shopping experience we decided to go to Best Buy for our first stop. There were so many people there at 6am that the entire Home Depot (next door) parking lot was full as well as both sides of State Street.
The next year Jess and I went to Radio Shack where the sales clerks were less than bright and had all of their inventory in the back. I guess that location had never had a hot item for sale before, they didn't think they'd sell them all before 6:30am. The lady in line behind us yelled at the clerk that we had cut in before her- anyway when we get up to check out the guy running my husband's credit card just about didn't let me use it. I offered to give him another card and he "let it slide this time". Inexperienced store, that's for sure.
This year, I didn't have a babysitter and I didn't think waking Ryan up at 4am was a very good idea, so I let him "sleep in" and we got going as soon as he was awake on his own- all of 6:40am. We were out the door before 8am and I was pleasantly surprised that the lines had dissipated quite a lot. It was well worth sleeping in since I didn't need anything that was on the 6, 5, or 4am hot sheet. The other shoppers were, well, I wouldn't go as far as friendly, but at least not ravenous. The lines were manageable, and everything I wanted was available.
I got nearly everyone on my list taken care of on the first stop. Our second stop was TOYS R US. The line was pretty bad, but of of course I heard stories of what it was like two hours previous. It went fast though and I got Ryan a new inexpensive toy for the trouble he'd been through and would have to endure the rest of the day. I was glad when I got out of there and quite disappointed in myself when I realized that I had forgotten a crucial item, but luckily Colin got off early and went out with me later. I made about three more stops then we went home for lunch and nap time before heading out again with Daddy.
Our big purchase of the year was truly amazing though and I have to share about it. We were looking over the adds and decided that this would finally be the year we got an HD TV. I told Colin to find the best deal (within reason) and we figured out that K Mart had the deal, and that they were actually open on Thanksgiving. I'm totally against it, but it saved me at least 2 hours of sleep and who knows how much other trouble getting a big TV at 4 am with a 2 year old (all by myself) would have been. So, while the turkey was in the oven and Ryan was asleep, we left Katie and Erin with the Trivial Pursuit and took off to get our deal. We found out that our TV was on sale, but would drop another $100 on Sunday. The clerk told me I could get a price adjustment when I found out that they only had 2 in stock. So, we went home with the TV and will go back for our price adjustment and get an even better deal! We also had some credit card reward gift cards we'd been planning on putting toward the purchase so we ended up spending about half on the TV's original price- not bad.
So, we had to get a new Entertainment Center to put the TV in and we found one that we absolutely fell in love with at IKEA. That was the project for the weekend and Colin and I have absolutely sat back and admired our work and set up since then. It is so not like me to do Christmas early, but what do you do with a giant TV box in a tiny apartment that is already overflowing with kid stuff? Anyway, here are pictures of our new finds- and Christmas presents!
Maybe we're doing this backward, but our old stuff is for sale now. So if you know anyone who needs a good deal on an entertainment center, or TV, send them my way. Oh, and if it's one of you (my friends) who are interested, I'm willing to give you a good deal.
The OLD set-up.
Boxes for the new Entertianment Center.
About half way done!
The Entertainment Center all done and the new TV in place.
The set-up wtih Christmas Decorations.
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