Let the Holiday Season Begin!

With Thanksgiving now behind us, it's time to look forward to the most wonderful time of the year: Christmas. And, like always, the action officially began this morning, circa 4am. Black Friday kicked off with sales at many stores across the country, and many internet sites are taking part as well (although technically when Cyber Monday takes place in a few days, there will be many more sales, I'm sure!).

I've been taking part in this economic-boosting tradition for over ten years now, and have always been able to find a good deal or two. I've been in several cities (Jensen Beach, Tallahassee, Fort Myers, and Melbourne being the major ones) for this event, but I must say that the traffic in Melbourne was pretty minimal, provided that you take back roads to get from one store to the next.

Last year was the first time that I utilized anything other than the flyers that come in the newspapers and mail the week before. With the internet being so readily available these days, and the fact that people leak out information in advance, the opportunity to plan becomes ever-so-much easier. With a simple spreadsheet, one is able to check out all the stores offering the same item, in order to not only compare prices, but to compare store opening times as well. Thanks to the insane amount of work that was put into that, after shuffling through the flyers to get some general ideas, you can easily check to see if you missed something you've been on the lookout for (you can sort by categories!).

I would love to hear about how your own shopping experiences went (where you found deals, what stores were crowded, how long the checkout lines were, what kind of coffee you picked up to stay awake, etc.). I'll recap my own morning below.

So there were three of us in the car this year, and it was the first Black Friday for one of my friends. We got a late start (having spent the night out-of-town last night), so we arrived at our first stop, Staples, at around 7am. We quickly grabbed both items we wanted, and waltzed through to a cashier in no time. Next stop, Kmart (which I always forget still exists until I see a sale flyer from them, LoL). Because they had already been open for quite a while, we missed out on the big-ticket item we were shooting for (gift for my brother), but picked up a couple other things. There were only a couple of people in front of us in line, so it was pretty fast too. Then it was over to Ace Hardware, which had been open for all of forty minutes when we walked through the door. Unfortunately for them, it seemed like there were only a few people who had been in there. The three open registers had no customers, and on our way to pick up the tools on the list, we passed four workers waiting to help somebody.

At this point we had a slight divergence, where I went to the mall, and the others headed to Circuit City. They went 3 for 4 at Circuit City (where there were long lines), and I made out with a beast of a deal at JCPenney. I cruised the rest of the mall while they checked out, but there was nothing too great on sale. We converged for a quick breakfast at the Chick-Fil-A in the food court, then headed on to Sears. We went 2 for 3 at Sears (and at this point I should mention that the missing item is the same thing we were after at Kmart and Circuit City), which was amazing, considering we got the last of one of those items (my sister's gift). It was almost 10am as we drove back to the house, and the guys chose to nap and watch a movie while I headed out for the final stop: Walgreens.

Walgreens is the store on my list that I always get to last. Every single year I try to make it there, but since the items are not as "big-ticket," I often don't make it there until after the sales end (around noon). This time, however, I was one of the few people in the store, and was able to take my time as I perused the Christmas card selections, carefully chose rolls of wrapping paper, and picked up gift tags, tape, and bows. As I headed back to the house, I felt an extreme sense of accomplishment, knowing that even though there are still presents to buy, we are 100% ready for the formalities of wrapping and sending gifts.

Oh, and to round out the tradition, we had Young's Chinese Buffet for lunch, then made a last minute purchase on Amazon, picking up gifts for my mom and brother (whose gift was almost 50% off there, so that was good enough).

Luckily, we steered clear of Wal*Mart (as per my husband's request), since an employee died after being trampled by customers in New York!