Black Thursday & Friday

Our alternative Thanksgiving schedule was a great advantage for my Black Friday shopping. In the past, I'm already tired from being on my feet in the kitchen all day, but I still had fun on the all-night shopping outings. This year was different thanks to my well-planned strategy.

I started Wednesday night by renting a few movies and staying awake until 3 a.m. Thursday. To ensure I would be adequately tired for a long afternoon nap, I slept only until 7:30 Thursday morning. I spent the day watching the Macy's parade, pouring over the advertising inserts in the paper, online reviews of products, and a massive spreadsheet of all available deals. After hours and hours of planning and research, I had readied my list of stores, list of deals, coupons and insert copies. What I thought would be a marvelous nap, though, was not to be. What the heck?! I was home alone. I enjoyed a glass of white wine. I snuggled up on the couch in comfy jammies to watch a boring movie. How could it have gone wrong?! I have no idea, but it did. I think I was just too anxious and excited to sleep, so I decided to just start my shopping early.

It was 10:15 when I left the house last night, and I've now returned home more than 19 hours later. I would love to show you pictures of me loading down my car or freezing as I stood in the sleeting rain outside JC Penney's or slowly snaking through the line at Bath & Body Works. But, that would give you the WRONG impressing. Black Friday was a blast! I amassed excellent deals from the outlet mall to department stores to boutiques.

My online shopping was done by my husband as he sat at work and also by myself as I stood in line. Of the three major online deals I wanted, I only managed to secure one . Boooo..... I may never let myself get excited about BF online deals again. It was just a big letdown. But, the in-store shopping was certainly not a letdown.

If you don't already do it, grab your mom and/or aunts, cousins and great aunts and begin planning your 2011 BF shopping spree. In the meantime, I am just going to take a little nap...