Black Friday

So this is what happens when you get this far behind in blogging. You start putting stories and events ahead of one another, and then you have to go back later and say what really happened before the last post happened.

Like now.

Before we had Thanksgiving on Saturday, we had Thanksgiving on Thursday. Well, sort of. We had Papa John's Pizza on Thursday (real Thanksgiving) but the day itself was absolutely wonderful. We did nothing and felt no guilt for it since every store was closed and everybody was busy. It was the best vacation ever. That night when we went out to get our pizza though, we noticed quite a few cars at Wal-Mart, so we decided to see what was going on. And that's when we remembered it was Black Friday in just a few hours.

Matt and I don't traditionally do Black Friday. We are the kind of people who buy what they want throughout the year at full price, wait until December 23rd to get their Christmas shopping done, and don't ever think twice about it. So no need to rush anything. However, as we were walking around looking at all the awesome stuff Wal-Mart had on sale for this one night, we suddenly found ourselves saying, "Oh! Wouldn't so-and-so love that? Don't we have them for Christmas this year? What a great price!" And we were committed. Because that is, after all, what happens when you go insane.

We got our pizza and ate it together at home. Then, when Bennett was down for the night and I was tucked into bed myself (I go to bed about thirty minutes after Bennett does. I need a lot of sleep to be a nice person) Matt put on his running shoes and a helmet (not really with the helmet) and went out into the chaos. My brave warrior, heading out to do battle with the masses for Christmas presents, while his family slept the night quietly away. I was so proud of him.

He got home around 3:00 in the morning after hitting several of the big players (Best Buy, Target, Kohl's, Wal-Mart), and then popped awake again around 6:30 to run to Lowe's for their opening. By the time I saw him it was around 10:00am and Bennett and I were already deep into our morning routine of Sesame Street and scrambled eggs, having slept a peaceful night. Matt had a huge stack of presents, all for a fraction of the price of what we would have spent normally, and several war stories that would rival the ones from Iraq. And our Christmas shopping is all but complete! Even mine, since while at Lowe's Matt bought several things for himself that he then gave to me to wrap and give to him.

Man. If I knew Black Friday would be this easy, I would have sent Matt out years ago.