Black Friday Done Right

I hope everyone had a fantastic Turkey Day!  Ours was perfect.  It was weird not being home with our extended families, but that's probably the new normal for us now.  Even without family, it was a great day spent with even greater friends.

And with the end of Thanksgiving comes the beginning of something that I look forward to all year.  The Christmas Season!  And nothing begins the Christmas Season better than good ole Black Friday.

Of course, I'm not sure you can truthfully call the shopping I partook in as Black Friday anymore.  Not when stores insist in beating each other out of the earliest opening times.  With Toys 'R Us opening up at 10pm Thursday evening, I didn't even get to go to bed for a few hours after stuffing myself to the brink.  I had to keep on trucking.

I know some people think the shoppers who go out after Thanksgiving are kind of crazy and that nothing could possibly be worth braving the chaos that goes on, but I disagree.  I think a lot of people go out not only because they can buy a lot more for their money with some of the amazing deals that are out there, but because it's tradition.

Black Friday has been going on for over fifty years now meaning it's spanned a few generations of shoppers.  I know when I look around at the crowds of people surrounding me in the stores on Black Friday, I see a lot of families out shopping together.  Mothers shopping with their adult daughters.  Aunts and cousins tagging along too.  It's a bonding experience even if it's based in consumerism masked as holiday cheer.

I may not have gone shopping with my mom and sister this year as I have in years previously, but I didn't go out alone.  I stayed up all night--stopping at five different stores in a seven hour span--with Ara, one of the my favorite people ever.  And we photo documented our travels. 

In line at the first store, Toys 'R Us.  (Which we didn't even shop at because the line into the store was taking hours and it was too darn cold to be worth it!)

Ara was completely prepared to take out any line jumpers or pushy shoppers who got in our way!

Keeping entertained in the hour long line at Old Navy.

At Kohl's, our second to last stop of the night.  We were pretty exhausted by this point.

 

The end result!

 I hope everyone is as excited for the Christmas season as I am!