Thanksgiving/Black Friday

Thursday morning we packed up and headed to Lincoln for Thanksgiving dinner at Cory & Jodee's house. They were kind enough to cook the turkey and let us spend the night so that Jodee and I could spend Black Friday shopping. This was our third annual Black Friday shop-a-thon. Cory made a delicious ham and turkey with all of the sides. I contributed a jello-poke cake for the dinner. After eating way too much, Jodee and I settled down with two newspapers and all of the ads. After browsing numerous times through the ads, we made our list of items that we wanted, what time each store opened and had the early deals, and then planned in what order to hit the stores running. We decided that our first stop would be Kohl's. The alarm clocks were set for 2:45 a.m. and we left the house at 3:00 a.m.

Jodee and I do not care how bad or good we look on Black Friday. The whole purpose is to score the deal. I get up when the alarm goes off, quickly put on my sweatpants and Nebraska sweatshirt, comb my hair and brush my teeth. That is it!!! Onward to the first store we go with our master shopping list and our charge cards. Oh, I almost forgot that we are both also loaded with extra coupons for the adventure. This year we had so many coupons between the two of us, that we passed them out to other people in line by us waiting to check out. Talk about being giving in the Christmas season.

Jodee scored huge deals at Kohl's (complete with doorbuster prices plus rebates plus extra coupon savings). Simply put, Jodee was making money while she was shopping at Kohl's. Then we proceeded onward to Target, Walmart, The Children's Place, Gymboree, Bath & Body Works, Younkers, Scheels, Hallmark and Old Navy. Finally at noon, we both needed a break and needed to catch our third or fourth winds. I was exhausted at this point. I couldn't even think straight plus I was developing a headache from lack of sleep and food.

In previous years, we have taken Jodee's mini-van out for our shopping adventure, but this year we took Jodee's car. She definitely picked the wrong time of the year to trade off the van and get a car. As you can see our purchases were falling out of the car.

I will classify it as another successful Black Friday shopping experience. We both have tons of patience while waiting in the long lines, plus we laugh at others around us. Now I just have to figure out how to get it all wrapped and also sort through it all and decide what is left on our list. I must accomplish this soon because this weekend is round 2 of the Christmas shopping at the Mall of America.

Take care,
Michelle