It never ceases to amaze me just how soon Santa is poking his big behind into Thanksgiving. But that doesn't stop me from blogging about it.
Thanksgiving was nice this year. It was a little uncertain what we were going to be walking into given all of the drama surrounding my sister and her relationship, but it ended up great! It was our family - mom, dad, sister and my hubby, and my mom's brother's family who live nearby. The food, as always, was awesome, and my pies got raving reviews! It was my first attempt at pumpkin pie and it turned out pretty well according to my relatives! Success! Pies might just become one of my new "things." I really like making them and they are for sure a challenge - the pie crust the most challenging in itself! One day you can do everything right and end up with a perfect crust, try the same thing a day or two later and it flops. Practice, practice, practice.
I cannot wait until we move into a house that is large enough to entertain more people - I think I would have Thanksgiving every single year for friends and family who were in the area with no place to go for Thanksgiving. It is my favorite holiday hands down.
After eating the large meal, most of us retreated to my parent's family room to watch the rest of the Packers/Lions game and sift through the gigantic pile of Black Friday ads from the paper. This year there was not too much that Derick and I looked through that we found much interest in. There were, however, a couple of things that caught our eye. One was a tablet on sale at Best Buy with about a half-price savings. Derick was very interested in this item, so we contemplated heading out to Best Buy at midnight that night. My sister also was convinced she wanted/needed one, so we were all going to caravan over there together.
My sister came over to our house around 10pm and we headed to a Best Buy we figured might be a little calmer than going into the heart of suburbia. Well, we were wrong. The line had wrapped around the front and side of the entire building and when we got in line, we were almost to the back of the building and we had about an hour and a half to wait outside. At least it was warm outside! I have never ever waited for a Black Friday sale, so this for sure, was quite the experience! While in line, we "met" a few friendly people who we laughed with and made the time pass more quickly.
Best Buy seemed to have things pretty well organized. Once in line, they had store associates walk up and down the line asking if people were here for item x, and item y and so-on from their ad. If you said yes, like we did for the tablet, they handed you a sheet of paper with a number at the top of the page. This item was a guarantee that if you had this ticket, you had until 4am to come in, claim and buy your item. That felt so good to get that piece of paper! So once we had that in our hands, we made a plan to go get other items that we knew we wanted. Derick and my sister were going to go back to the computer section to get Derick the keyboard dock for his tablet, and I was going to rush the video game section to get Derick his "Sharp Shooter" for the PS3 Move. Derick also wanted to get the Boy Meets World seasons 4-7, so that was going to be our meet-up location.
Once the doors opened, the line swiftly moved into the store. I was amazed to see all of the camping chairs and bikes just left outside the front of the building and all of the ads, food wrappers and garbage there were that we had to step over (no garbage cans in sight) to make it to the entrance. Once inside, there wasn't any pushing or shoving or grabbing items from each other, it seemed very FULL of people, but alright. I made my way back to the video games section where PS3 and Xbox's were flying off the rack like they cost $5. I found the Sharp Shooter and grabbed the last one in the stack. I clutched that thing as close to my short body as I could and tried to make my way back to the DVDs. Boy, was THAT a challenge! The store had blocked off most aisles so that you were forced to travel most of the main aisles and not deviate from that plan. Well, with all the people herding towards the video game area, I was almost trapped in the back corner. But, I was finally able to make it to an aisle where I stepped over one of the "boxed-off" walls and hurried over to the DVDs. The other two had found what they were looking for and I spotted the Boy Meets World DVDs. We grabbed those and then found out we had to make our way to another long line to claim and purchase our tablets. ugh. That line was probably one of the worst ones of the night. It did. not. move. After awhile of watching some crazy family interactions in front of us, we turned to a couple behind us and again, laughed and made small talk with them until finally, we reached the checkpoint and then the checkout counter. Three hours from the time we got in line outside until the time we got back into the truck, we had our items.
My sister had to work the next morning at 9am, so we brought her back to our place so she could drive back home. There was one item at Walmart that I had wanted to get, so we decided to run over there quickly, and be done with our Black Friday craziness until later that day, when we were going to go to Gander Mountain to get the last of our items we wanted to get. Walmart was not crazy at all - there were a lot of people there, but it really seemed like a routine shopping trip. That might have been because they had opened their sales up at 10pm and by this time, it was almost 2am.
After Walmart, we came home and fell asleep. Later that afternoon, we woke up, and went to Gander Mountain to get the last of the items on "the list." Derick is now all set for his birthday and Christmas, so that is nice. I don't think he has put down that tablet since we got it home with us! I am very thankful for the nice, long weekend and being able to spend it with our family and purchase some of the items we had been looking for, for much cheaper than a normal shopping trip!
I hope that you and yours had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you feel as blessed as I do for who you have around you.
-LD
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