The Best Day of the Year, Almost

One of my absolute favorite holidays was this week...I know what you're thinking, and no, it was not Thanksgiving. Don't get me wrong, I like Thanksgiving; I just don't love it (don't tell Wil I said that! It's his absolute favorite holiday, so I try hard to be a good sport!). You see, the great holiday that took place this weekend was the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Shop-Til-You-Drop day, or whatever you prefer to call it.

I think I was about ten years old the first time we went Black Friday shopping. My grandma and I decided to go get the free gifts. It stuck. Even though most stores no longer offer free gifts for the first fifty in the door (the way we used to decide which stores to go to was by who had the best gifts...Mervyn's almost always won, but then...they're out of business now, so it might not have been the best business model for them). Now, we base our shopping on the best deals for the gifts we want to buy.

Once she was old enough, my cousin Lynda started coming with us too. It's a grandma, granddaughter tradition. We wake up uber, super early - this year it was about 3 a.m., and get to the first store about half an hour before they open! HOORAY! I LOVE it! Wil teases me because it's the one day of the year I wake up singing (the other 364 days, I typically beg for five more minutes when the alarm goes off).

The picture is of my grandma and Lynda in line at Kohls (our first stop). They opened at 4, so we got there about 3:40 a.m. From there we went to Walmart (which is insane! the best way to do Walmart is to leave one person with a cart in line and to send search parties out to get what you're looking for. There are way too many people to try to navigate a cart through the aisles), Michaels, Target, Petsmart, Einsteins (it's tradition that we have Einstein bagels for breakfast!), Big Five Sporting Goods, Macys and JC Penney. It was a busy day...but oh so worth it!