Naptime Blog

I have always enjoyed the “rush” of Black Friday.  It wasn’t about the huge sales or big deals, for I do not think I ever saved a tremendous amount of money by leaving my house at 5AM to get the early bird specials at Walmart, Target, JCPenney, or even Toys R Us.  It was always about that rush, the excitement of raiding the stores, getting into the Christmas Spirit (ok, minus the pushing and shoving desperate holiday shoppers!), enjoying a day off to shop.  I have been doing it for years, and this time I decided for the first time I would check out the midnight sales.  Probably will be the last.

I enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family.  My husband and children and I enjoyed a great breakfast with my parents and siblings, got to watch some of the Thanksgiving Day Parade, and then headed to my mother-in-law’s for an awesome dinner.  The kids loved their turkey dinner, and after a very filling meal, I was ready to keep my eyes open with toothpicks!  But instead, we got the kids washed and ready for bed, we were spending the night at my in-laws, and after everyone was settled, my husband and I changed into comfortable shoes and out the door we went.

At midnight, we were at the outlets.  For anyone who was unaware of the actual time, one would think it was 12 PM not 12 AM!  The outlet stores opened at midnight and had incredible sales, so many of them had lines wrapped around the buildings to get in and shop!  AMAZING!  The Christmas music was blaring, the teens were hanging out by the food court, and the people were SHOPPING!  I did not agree with the parents who had little kids dragging along and babies in strollers at 2 AM, but otherwise, I was impressed with the amount of people out shopping after Thanksgiving!

We left the outlets at around 2:30 AM and were about to head home when we passed Walmart and were pleasantly surprised to see that it was open.  Unfortunately, though, we walked in, walked around, and walked right out.  This was probably the first year that I did not get any deals at Walmart on Black Friday.  They had been opened since midnight and gave out tickets to those first in line.  So by 2:30, all the popular items were gone and the people were waiting around until they could collect their “prizes” at 5AM.  I did not want to shop through idle, exhausted customers, so we left.  We headed to Toys R Us.

I was thrilled to see no lines and no huge crowds in Toys R Us.  For me, I didn’t have any toys to buy that I would have to fight for, and since Toys R Us was also open since midnight, the crowds were already gone.  I did hear, however, from the check-out woman that at midnight the line was wrapped around the store halfway through the parking lot and it was a scary sight.  So I am happy we were in the outlets enjoying the music and shopping nicely!

So far so good!  We left Toys R Us at 4 AM and debated heading home.  The one item we had hoped to score was a laptop for my daughter, and since we hadn’t had any luck with that thus far (we got great deals on everything else we purchased!), we decided to pass by Staples.  There was one man standing there, and when we drove by and spoke to him, we learned he was a clerk and the store would open at 6AM.  We were the first people there!  So Paul and I parked the car, and waited in the line.  People started to come (we learned two were there before us but were resting in their cars), it was getting quite chilly out, it began to get exciting, and then it started to rain. 

By then we were in too deep to go home.  After all, we were first in line!  And there were HP laptops starting at $299!  So we waited.  And waited.  And waited.

The manager showed up at 4:30 and we began to watch the associates come in one by one.  And at 5:45 the manager came out with a clipboard to start taking our orders.  Those first in line (US!) would have first crack at the merchandise!  One laptop per customer.  And my sweet husband decided we would each walk out with one:  Santa would bring my daughter one this year, and he would also bring ME one!

Yes, I am thrilled, as we bought two laptops at great prices and my shopping is pretty much done!  BUT, I could not get the chill out of my body until the next afternoon, and almost a week later, I still have not recovered from pulling that all-nighter!  I’m not as young as I used to be! 

Happy Shopping!

Jennifer
Wife to Paul, Mom to Juliana (7), Anthony and Louis (1) and Joseph (2 months)
www.nevaland.com

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 19th, 2009 at 3:08 am and is filed under Holidays, Jennifer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.