The Day After Thanksgiving

I don’t know what it is about the day after Thanksgiving, but you can feel the excitement in the air. The official start of the holiday season, I suppose. Black Friday, the holiday shopping lists, cleaning up the house, decorating, planning for the cooking and baking that will need to be done, the holiday parties and get togethers etc etc.

I myself have never done shopping on Black Friday. I guess it’s because I didn’t want to be involved with the lines, the traffic, the craziness of people trying to buy the most wanted sale items. This year turned out to be different. My guy needed to purchase an extremely popular video system for his kids. Being a full time Dad, he couldn’t just wake his kids up in the wee hours of the morning and let them watch what he was buying, soooooo…I offered to get up early and drive to the store.

Wow…it might have only been 5:45 am on the clock, but when I entered the store, it seemed like it was 5:45 pm instead. I always heard about the crowds, the sales etc, but I actually witnessed it for myself. I couldn’t believe how many people were shopping at the mall at that hour. I was in and out of the store within 15 minutes though. Now what? I was already awake and dressed. Do I go home and sleep for a few more hours or do I continue shopping since all the stores were opened already. Um…I decided to continue shopping.

I have to admit that I did get some pretty good deals on several items AND I was done with all my Christmas shopping by 10:30am! I couldn’t believe it. I was prepared by keeping a list of all the gifts I wanted for each person. That saved me time and in the end, money.

I did find some stores lured customers in with ads of special deals, but upon arriving, the deals weren't all that special.

Did you go shopping on Black Friday this year? How was your experience...positive or negative?