Black Friday

This morning was the first time I have ever participated in a Black Friday. I've always said that I was going to go, but by the time 4 a.m. came around, whatever I thought I had to have the night before, didn't seem all that cool or like such a great bargain and sleep seemed like a much better idea.

This year I decided I was really going to go. Chris has gone before and after he tried to warn me of the mass destruction I was about to witness, he said he was willing to go with me to help me through my first Black Friday experience. I figured Bubby only sleeps until about 7 anyway, so me going shopping at 5 wouldn't really mean that I was losing much sleep.

So off we went, bright and early at 4:45 a.m., in the rain with poor Bubby all bundled up in his car seat to the only real store here in Tooele...Wal-Mart. I wasn't into this whole thing that much to convince myself to drive all the way into Salt Lake, plus there really wasn't anything in yesterday's ad's that I felt like I just HAD to have. There were however a few things that I wanted to see if we could get at Wal-Mart, and if we weren't able to get them, home is only a few minutes away, so we just stayed here.

We rounded the corner to Wal-Mart and there I saw a scene like I had never seen before! The parking lot was completly full! People were parking on the street or in other business parking lots, and taking off in a dead run towards the doors. We parked across the street in the Applebee's parking lot and when we got across the street there wasn't a shopping cart to be found! We got inside and Chris told me to go to wherever I could make my way to and he would look for carts. I was a little scared I have to admit. Chris kept Bubby out of the crowds and over by the doors at first until he found a cart. I was glad, because man those people can be CRAZY! I didn't want Bubby to get hurt!

One of the things I wanted to see if I could get were some really cheap Pajama's and slippers for the kids. I figured these wouldn't be at the top of the "hot items" list, but wow, was I wrong! It may not have helped that they happened to be right at the front of the store by the doors. I ran over there and assessed the situation. At first I was trying to be polite, saying "excuse me" and "sorry", but after getting pushed and shoved one too many times, I decided being polite was getting me no where! I pushed my way back into the crowd and amazingly I found pajama's in all my kids' sizes and even got some decent ones. Believe me it was a HUGE accomplishment getting a pair of Hannah Montana Pajama's AND matching slippers in Reagan's size, and the fact that Cameron wasn't stuck with Winnie the Pooh Pajama's was another huge accomplishment. I don't think Bubby is at the age where he cares what his jammies look like, but I did get him some rather cute Sponge Bob jammies. I'm not the biggest Sponge Bob fan, but then I also wasn't a real big fan of the Dora or Princess ones in his size either.

From there we went on to toys. I thought the pajama's were a mess! I eventually ended up being the cart monitor, and Chris bless his heart was the runner! I tried to navigate my way through the crowds with my huge cart and sleeping baby while Chris and I tried to find the things on our list. Eventually we found it was just easier for me to find an aisle that was empty and stay put while Chris went hunting.
What in the world did people do on Black Friday before there were Cell Phones!?!

It was all a very surreal experience. I kept thinking, I can't believe I am actually here in this mess, and it's totally by choice! Thankfully Keric slept through the entire thing and we got pretty much everything we went there for, plus a few extra things we didn't. We even got brave and went over to Home Depot afterwards. We found some really good deals there too.

By the time we were done, we hardly had room for Bubby AND ourselves in the car. Our poor car was pretty loaded down!

All in all, I guess I have to say, if I can get more then half of my Christmas shopping done in about 3 hours, and save as much money as we did today, I suppose I can live with the bruises and anxiety that go along with it. I don't know if I will brave the crowds again next year, but we'll see. It was actually pretty fun once we got into it, and I'm glad Chris was there to help me! If it had been me by myself, I'm afraid I would have either turned around and come home, or else walked out with one pair of pajama's and a life time of trauma.

Even though Keric slept through most of the shopping experience, he was nice to his mommy and daddy and took another 2 hour nap after we got home! I have such a GOOD baby!

I hope the rest of you, whether you were at home in your nice warm beds, or out braving the chaos like us, enjoyed your Black Friday too!